The Sacrier's Journey
by lloyd1191
Summary: Follow the adventures of a Sacrier, who travels dangerous lands, meets annoying people, and whenever possible, enjoys the company of the ladies. Warning: F/F (I'll try to add elements from both, the game and the animation. Send me a PM if you have questions about the story.)
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Brakmar, how I hate this place, and I do mean it. It's not just because it's literally "the city of darkness and evil", this damn place is hot as hell, they charge for almost everything, and there are criminals in every corner. Someone might wonder what I'm doing here if I hate this city so much, and honestly, I would have avoided this wretched place if I could. Unfortunately, I need supplies for my travels, and as evil as the city might be, they sell more than just poisons to kill someone. On my way to the market, I pass a building that's right next to a bridge, and I wouldn't pay too much attention to it, if it wasn't for something peculiar about it. First thing that I notice, is the sexy girls standing outside, with those dresses leaving a good amount of cleavage exposed, and those long boots. The second thing I notice, is the sign on that building, which was very simple, it has the drawing of a man and a woman holding hands. If I'm not mistaken, which I'm not, that's a brothel. In all honesty, that's the only good thing I find in this city. If I could, I would choose the Ecaflip standing next to the Cra, take her upstairs, kiss those luscious lips, rip her clothes off, and make some sweet love to her. I mean, no one can blame me about it, I haven't done it in a while, and I'm feeling a little frustrated. However, she would most likely say no, call the guards, and I would be thrown in jail. I don't know what's with them, Bonta pretty much allows same-sex marriage, but this isn't that kind of city. Oh well, maybe another time, it's not like it would be hard in getting someone to spend the night with. As a Sacrier, I'm a very good looking person, with my short red hair, my olive skin complexion, and dark brown eyes. I also have these muscles, and thanks to them, let's just say that I've got a lot of approval from the ladies. Well, enough about that, I continue on my way to the market, and I notice an alley that goes straight to my destination. I go in, and halfway to the end, two strange people come down and block my way. Not only from the front, but two more also land behind me, which makes it obvious that it's an ambush, or robbery, whatever they want to call it.

"Good afternoon, young lady" says one of the guys in front of me, which looks like a Rogue. It makes me wonder, how do they know it's afternoon? You can't see the sun from down here.

"Hello," I say out of politeness.

"I'm sure you can pretty much guess what this is, am I correct?" Is he trying to sound cool or something? Because it makes me want to punch him even more.

"Depends."

"On what?" says someone behind me, I look back, and find another Rogue with a Sram next to him.

"If you leave now, it would make it a waste of my time, but if you stay, it's going to be a beatdown for you guys." My words makes them laugh for some reason.

"We got a brave one in here," says the Sram behind me. "I like her type, I can't wait to hear her cry." He probably gets off from that.

"Okay, before you guys continue, let me tell you this," I say. "If you don't leave, I'm going to kick your asses," after I say that, I turn to the Sram and say this. "As for you, I'll make sure to kick your ass so hard, that you won't be able to sit down for a month." After hearing that, the Sram pulls out some knives, and I can see that one of the Rogues pulls out a knife, the other one a sword, and the last one a gun.

"Just for that, I'll make them your last words." Once he finished saying that, I hear the Rogue with the gun preparing to fire. I quickly grab him the tattoo on my left arm, pull him towards me, and punch him with a Blood Rush right in the face. My attack quickly knocks him out, and I hear something flying towards me. I look behind me, and just as I expected, knives were on their way to stab me. I easily move out of the way, and notice the other two Rogues on the air, ready to plunge their weapons on me. I dodge the knife, harden the blood in one of my arms, and block the sword with it. I quickly move out of the way, grab the Rogue, and use his momentum to throw him behind me. Then, the Rogue with the knife lunges towards me, and I kick him with a Rocky Foot. I slam him against the wall, and he falls unconscious. That left the Rogue with the sword and the Sram. The Rogue tries to attack me with his sword, while the Sram prepares to throw more knives at me. I react by using a Rejectattoo, and it hits the Rogue on the stomach, which push him towards the Sram. He moves out of the way, and I can see that the attack knocked the air out of the Rogue, leaving the Sram as the last one.

"Okay, last chance, leave or accept the consequences," I say, and I hope that he's not as stupid as I think he is. Unfortunately, he proves me right, and makes a clone of himself. Oh well, no one can deny that I tried to be nice. The clone pulls out a scythe out of nowhere, and dash towards me. I use my Light Speed spell, move towards the clone, punch it right in the face, and get closer to the Sram. He tries to move away, but I catch him with a tattoo, and pull myself towards him, with a Sacrier's Fist ready for him. I land it squarely in his face, and leaves him unable to continue the fight. Now, in any other circumstance, I would just leave them on the ground, and go on with my business. However, I'm a Sacrier of my word, and get everything ready to fulfill my promise. I prepare the Sram, lift his butt just enough to get the right angle, and move away. Then, I run towards him, and kick him with a Rocky Foot as hard as I can, and send him flying to the other side of the street. That probably got some attention, but I'm sure they would forget about it. This is Brakmar, so I guess this kind of thing is pretty common. I continue on my way, get out of the alley, and finally reach the market.

I immediately start looking the many goods in the marketplace, and I have to admit that the prices can be a bit ridiculous. Of course, I don't say anything about it because I fear that they would raise the price out of spite. I quickly buy everything that I need and put it into my bag. Now that I'm done here, I'll have to look for a place to stay, and when I say that, I mean a place where I can sleep and no one will bother me. I start to leave the area, and on my way, I see something that should be completely expected of such a place like this. A pale Sram with very long black hair and brown eyes, sitting on the ground and begging for money. I guess she doesn't have the weapons to steal money. She's wearing a black skin tight one-piece suit with red bones drawn in it, and black arm sleeves with red knives drawn in them. I get near her and she put her hands forward, and I try to ignore her, but I look into her eyes. I see nothing in them, no insanity, no hunger, and worst of all, I don't see any hope in them. I look away, tell myself to keep walking, and keep telling myself that there's nothing I can do. There's no point in helping her, nothing will change if I help her, and even if I do, she's just going to continue living as a bum, just another one among the many. I tell these things to myself, which doesn't explain why I stop, instead of keep going on my way. I know this feeling, I don't know what it is, but I know it. Still, I turn around, go back to the Sram, stand in front of her, and she looks at me. I look back at her, I put my hand into my bag, and start to look for something to give her. I quickly pull out an apple, which is better than money because I don't know if she will buy something to harm herself or someone else. I present the apple to her, she looks at it for a moment, and looks at me in confusion. I gesture with the apple, so that she takes the fruit. She looks at the apple again, and finally grabs it with both hands, as if it was a treasure. With the fruit in her hands, I turn away, and go on my way to look for a spot to rest. I start to feel better about it, even though it won't do much, at least it brings me some peace.

I find a secluded spot, and made sure that no one followed me. I don't want some stranger taking my bag, and attempting to enter my home, or room, or whatever it is that people want to call it. I put my haven bag on the ground, and enter into it. It has just the basics for my travels, like a dresser, a table with some chairs, my bed, a stove, and so on. According to my clock, it's around ten in the evening, so I should prepare for bed. I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow, and I don't want to be here any longer than I need to. I take off my shoes, my vest, my tank top, my pants, and my underwear. Then, I move towards my buckets, pull the big one filled with clean water near the end of my bag, take a small bucket, soap, and shampoo. It may not be much, but when you're traveling around like myself, this is the best one can do. I don't complain, but some people aren't suited for this kind of thing. When I'm done with my bath, I put on my new underwear and my pajamas, which is basically another tank top and some shorts. While I wait for my short red hair to dry up, I prepare a light dinner, and eat it. By then, my hair should be already dry enough to go to my bed. I turn off my lamp, lock my bag, and I would have gone under covers, but the city is so hot, that I don't need to. It's a good thing that I'll leave tomorrow, I really hate the city, which is why I lay down, and quickly go to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I'm sitting on a couch, in front of a fireplace, and with some good wine in hand. I'm not doing much, just enjoying some me time, and drinking this expensive wine, which tastes amazing. Then, I notice someone moving in front of the fireplace, which is the only source of light in the room. Still, I can make out the silhouette in front of me, and it turns out to be a Cra. She has beautifully long blonde hair, deep green eyes, and a healthy fair complexion. I've seen many Cras before, but she's the sexiest I've seen so far. To make it even more sexier, she's wearing a white chemise, which hugs her in all the right ways, and white stockings. On my part, I'm wearing a shirt, and some pants. I don't know why I'm wearing something so simple, but for this case, I'm not complaining. She starts to walk slowly towards me, swaying those hips of hers, and when she reaches me, she sits on my lap. Then, she wraps her arms around my neck, gets close to my ear, and growls. Okay wait, this growl sounded weird, it's not that sexy growl I was expecting, and it didn't sound like that of an animal.

I wake up from my dream, and judging by the sound of the growl, it was coming from behind me. So I quickly turn around, and with the dim light from outside, I can make out a silhouette, carrying a bag full of Kamas, which are mine.

"Hey!" I yell to the intruder, who's also a damn thief, and it dashes towards the exit of my bag. I look towards the lock of my bag, which is open, so I grab it with my tattoos as fast as I can, and close the lock. The intruder stands on the exit, and is puzzled at first, until it notice that it isn't working. Then, it looks at the lock, which I'm still holding with my tattoos, and looks at me. It dashes towards the lock, and I pull myself towards the mechanism, right on time to stand in front of the thief. It tries to move away from me, while still holding my money in hand, and I throw my tattoos at the intruder. I grab my bag of money and pull it way from it, while the other grabs on it's leg. The thief pulls out a scythe out of nowhere, which makes me realize that the person in my bag is a Sram. The Sram cuts my tattoo and tries to get as far away from me as possible. Then, the Sram throws a few knives at me, and I roll out of the way to dodge them. Once I recover, I throw one of my tattoos again, which grabs one of the Sram's hands. The Sram pulls out a knife to cut it, but I quickly grab the other hand with my other tattoo. I pull myself towards the thief, and slam into it. We fall to the floor, I quickly get up, and move towards my lamp, while pulling the Sram. I let go of one of the Sram's arms, and pull down the chain to turn on the light. I look at the Sram, and it turns out to be a girl, which I've seen before. I saw her in the marketplace, on the ground, begging for money, and I gave her an apple. Dammit, it's the Sram from the marketplace, and it seems that my act of charity came back to bite me in the ass. She flips over, and starts to get up on all fours. I walk up to her, grab a chair with one of my tattoos, pull it to me, grab it, pull the Sram to her feet, and shove her into the chair. I look into her eyes, and I can see that she's clearly terrified.

"How did you get into my bag?" I ask and try to make my voice very menacing.

"I made myself invisible and got in," says the Sram, which makes me realize that I forgot they could do that. I look away from the Sram, and look at the bag on the floor. There's a lot of money in that bag, then I look at my dresser, which has knives stuck on it. I swear on the goddess, if one of those hit the mirror inside, or ruined one of my favorite vests, I'm going to kick this Sram's ass. Speaking of her ass, I look back at the Sram, and she's so scared, I'm afraid that she will piss herself, which would ruin my chair. A normal person would report her to the authorities, and be done with her, but when I look at her, I just feel pity for her. Even more when I hear that growl on her stomach again. I can understand why she did this, she just wants money to feed herself. So, I figure out what I'm going to do with her.

"Stay right here, and don't you do anything, you understand me?" I say, and she responds with a nod. I leave her in the chair, grab my money, go to my cupboard, and get everything ready. When I'm done, I walk back to the Sram, who's still on the chair, grab one of her hands, and put a bag on it. "Here, there's enough money to last you a week." I don't think the Sram believe me because she opens the bag, looks inside, only to find Kamas in it. She looks at me in confusion, which is to be expected. "Trust me, I would have kicked you out of my bag and leave you empty handed, but this," I point at the bag, "is to make sure that you don't come back into my bag, again. Now, if you could be so kind," I grab the lock of my bag with my tattoos, open it, and point to the exit, "get out of my bag." It was a very simple order in my opinion, I expect her to just get up, and leave. Instead, she looks at the bag in her hand, looks at me for a moment, and looks back at the bag. "If you need help, I can help you to the exit." I grab the Sram around the waist with one arm, lift her up, which make her yelp, and walk to the exit while carrying her under my arm. Halfway to the exit, she finally speaks again.

"Wait, let me stay!" screams the Sram, which makes me stop.

"Okay, first of all, don't you scream at me, ever. Second," I say, and start cleaning one of my ears with a pinkie finger, "I must have heard wrong, and I'm pretty sure I heard wrong, but would you care to repeat that?" I pull my finger out of my ear, and give her my complete attention.

"Let me stay." Okay, I'm not imagining things, and I did hear that right, which makes it even more unbelievable. I look at the Sram straight in the eye, and ask.

"Why would I let you, a Sram, who just happened to sneak into my bag, tried to steal from me, and attacked me, to stay in my bag?"

"I'm so sorry about that, I promise I won't do it again."

"You're damn right you won't do it again because if you do it again, I will kick your ass."

"Please let me stay."

"You don't need to stay, you have money to fend for yourself."

"Then I'll give it back." She's persistent, and it's getting annoying. Besides, the whole point about all this is that she wanted the money.

"No, that's for you."

"Then I'll pay for my stay."

"Does this look like an inn to you?" Seriously, all I would need is a damn apron on me, and welcome everyone into my bag with a sweet smile. I restart my walk to the exit, and she tries to break free, but discovers that it's useless.

"If you kick me out, then I'll let everyone know where you are, and tell them that you have a lot of money."

"Trust me, the last group that tried to rob me ended up with my foot up their asses. So, I don't think they will try that any time soon." We finally reach the exit of my bag, and prepare to throw her out of my bag. "Now, get out, and never come back!" I throw her out of my bag, quickly grab the lock of my bag, close it, and with that, I got rid of that nuisance. I got to my lamp, turn off the light, and go back to bed, ready to go back to that wonderful dream that was rudely interrupted.

Okay, I'm on my comfortable bed, trying to go to dreamland, but for some reason, I can't go to sleep. I twist and turn in my bed, but nothing comes. I know what's keeping me awake, but I'm telling myself to ignore it, and have sweet dreams. I'm strong, I can do this, I just have to focus on something else, and I'll fall asleep. Any second now, I'll sleep, and the next morning will come in an instant. Fuck, I get up from my bed, walk up to the lock of my bag, open it, and get out of my bag. Lo and behold, just as I thought, I see the Sram, sleeping close to my bag, while holding the bag with Kamas as if her life depended on it. I groan in annoyance, but I know I won't be able to sleep if I don't do this. I get out of my bag, walk up to the Sram, kneel down, and shake her awake. She sits up completely alarmed, looks at me, and I put a hand in her mouth while I shush her with a finger on my lips. She quickly realize that it's me, and calms down. Without saying a thing, I grab her by the arm, pull her up, and towards my bag.

Once inside, I pull her to the middle of my bag, let go of her arm, and look at her straight in the eye.

"Don't get the wrong idea, I'm only taking you out of the city, and that's final. After that, you're on your own, I don't care what you do, or where you go, that's as far as I'll take you, got it?" I say, and I mean business. The Sram only nods in response, which is good for me, I don't want to hear any protest or back talk at this point. I ask for the bag in her hands, and she gives it to me. Then, I start to smell something awful, like gobball dung and rotten fruit. I sniff around, and discover that the smell it's coming from my unwanted guest. "You're taking a bath, right now." Right after I say that, I hear the very familiar noise of hunger. The Sram at least has the decency to be embarrassed about that. I just groan in annoyance because I'll have to feed her if it will shut that stomach of hers up. "I'll make something while you're bathing." I go to my cupboard, put the money away, and go to where I have my buckets. I pull them out, grab my bathing supplies, and take them to where I usually take a bath. When I get there, I signal the Sram to come over, and she does so. I get everything ready, give her the soap, shampoo, a sponge, a little bucket, and I leave her there to prepare some dinner. She'll probably need a good amount to get her satisfied, so I'll probably make some roasted gobball with vegetables, and give her some juice. I get everything that I'll need, which was food for my travels, and was about to turn on the stove, until I notice that the Sram is looking around. I leave my little kitchen, walk up to her, and ask. "What's wrong?"

"You don't have a bathroom?" asks the Sram.

"Nope, just my buckets to wash myself, and a toilet over there," I point at the booth, which has the toilet inside. "Why?"

"It's just…" She looks at the floor, starts to fidget on the spot, and I quickly realize what the problem was.

"I promise I won't look, I'll be focused on my kitchen, and preparing dinner, okay?" That seems to work because she looks at me, and nods. With that fixed, I go back to my kitchen, and start working on her food. Now that I think about it, how do they take those suits off? I didn't see any zipper on it. Well, I did promise I wouldn't look, so I won't. Oh crap, I just remembered something. "When you're done, go to my dresser, and put on a shirt."

"Why?"

"I'm pretty sure that suit of yours smells worst than crap, so I'll wash it for you while you eat."

"Okay."

By the time I'm done with her dinner, she was already done with her bath, and was waiting on my table. It's a good thing that she's practically a foot smaller than me, or that shirt of mine wouldn't be enough to cover the important parts. I put her dinner on the table, and left her to get my cleaning supplies for that suit of hers. I look to where my buckets are, and find that the suit was left on the floor, which is fine. I didn't want her to touch that dirty thing right after she took a bath. I walk up to it, grab it, and start cleaning it. In a matter of minutes, I have the suit completely clean, and started drying it by heating my arms up with Blood Rush. It's surprising that the suit doesn't have any kind of hole on it, must be made of some tough material. While drying the suit, I hear a satisfied sigh from the table, which makes me look, only to find that the Sram was already done with dinner. When I'm done with the suit, I walk up to her, and give her the suit.

"Good as new," I say, and she looks at her suit with a smile. Then, she looks at me. "You want to put it on?" She nods in response, I grab the dishes, take them to the sink, and start washing them. While doing that, I hear her taking my shirt off, and putting on her suit. Seriously, how do they put that thing on? When I finish with the dishes, I turn around, and find the Sram sitting on my bed. I walk up to her, and look at her in the eye. "You're not sleeping on my bed." She looks at me in confusion, and looks around.

"Then, where will I sleep?" she asks. I leave her, go to my closet, pull out some things, and walk back to her. I give her a pillow, a blanket, and point to my floor. "Oh, okay." She gets off of my bed, puts the pillow down, lays down, and covers herself with the blanket. I don't feel bad about it, she's already used to sleeping on the ground. However, I don't know about her sleeping so close to my bed, but I'm too tired right now. I walk up to my lamp, turn off the light, go back to my bed, and I'm finally ready to sleep. Then, the Sram says something I wasn't expecting at all. "Good night." That's all she says, a very simple good night, and there was nothing special about it. I say that to myself, and yet, it hits me right there. I don't know why, probably because it's been a long time since someone said that to me, and with such honesty.

"Good night," I say, I don't know why I said that, but I did, and to make it even more confusing, it gets me to relax. It doesn't take long for me to fall asleep after that.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

I wake up the next morning, or I think is morning, my clock does say that it's ten in the morning. I woke up a little late than I wanted, but I'm still leaving this awful city, even if it's the evening. I sit on the edge of my bed, stretch, and yawn. I look down, and find the Sram still asleep. Damn, I almost forgot that I let her sleep in my bag, and I'm more surprised that I woke up alive. I get up, carefully pass over the Sram, and go to my cupboard. I open it, check my money, and find that it's all in there. Good to know that she didn't take anything from me because that would mean that I would have to look for her, and kick her ass. Well, with that out of the way, I go to my dresser, open it, and take off my pajamas. I put it inside the dresser, and pull out my clothes for today, which is another tank top, vest, pants, and shoes. Now, I need something to eat for breakfast, which I think it would be eggs with some ham, toast, and juice. I go to my fridge, get what I need, get the stove ready, and start preparing my meal. While working on it, I hear the Sram stirring, and look behind me. She sits up, rubs her eyes, and starts looking around with half-closed eyes. She seems confused at first, and I think she doesn't know where she is. Then, I see she calms down, which means that she just remembered where she is. I'm done watching, so I got back to my cooking. After a few moments, I hear her approaching, and I start to feel a presence next to me. I look to my side, and I see her looking at the food on the stove. I think she felt my eyes on her because she looks away from the food, and looks at me in the eye. She doesn't say anything, but I know what she wants.

"Want some?" I ask, in hopes that she says no.

"Please?" She asks. Of course, why did I expect anything else? I look back to my food, and say.

"Go take a seat." She leaves me to my work, and I hear the chair moving. Well, what was supposed to be my plate, turns out to be hers now. I put the food on the plate, and look back. "Grab a cup, and serve yourself something to drink. I got juice and milk in the fridge." She gets up from the table, and goes to my cupboard. I grab her plate, put it on the table, and go to my fridge. I see that she picked the juice, and she also holds the door open for me. "Thanks," I say, and grab what I need. Then, she closes the fridge, and goes back to the table. When I'm done preparing my breakfast, I put it on my plate, turn off the stove, and take my plate to the table. I'm a little surprised to find a cup and the juice left next to it on the other side of the table. I guess she can be considerate, even though she eats like she was an animal. By the time I finish serving myself some juice, and sit on the table, I see that she was already half way done with her food. I ignore it, and start eating my food.

When we're done, I take the plates, and put them in the sink. I also put the pan, and everything else on the sink. I was about to start cleaning the dishes, when the Sram stands next to me.

"I can wash the dishes," says the Sram, and it surprises me. I just look at her for a moment, and shrug my shoulders.

"Okay," I say, and leave her to do just that. After that, I go to my fridge, and check how much food I have for my travels. With what I just used for breakfast, I have enough food for a week, once I get rid of my guest. I close my fridge, go to my chest, pull out a map, and take it to the table. I take a seat, and start to check on my next destination. According to the map, once I leave the city, there's a little town nearby, which would take me at least two days to reach on foot. There might be some work for me over there, and if I'm lucky, it's some kind of monster that needs to be killed. That's my only kind of favorite job, even though I can do something less dangerous, but they tend to pay less. Oh well, I put the map back, and go to the toilet. I don't know how it actually works, all I know is that there's something in it that gets rid of the waste. When I'm done, I go back to my kitchen, and see that the Sram just finished washing the dishes.

"Thanks for that. Now, let's go," I say, and start walking towards the exit of my bag. I hear her following me, and when we reach the exit, I let her get out first. I don't trust her alone in my bag, she might close it once I'm out. With her out of my bag, I get out of my home.

Once outside, I grab my bag, we leave the area, and head straight to the zaap of the city. We reach it without any problem, except for the unbelievable line to leave the city. I mean, oh my goddess, there's no line that goes into the city, but this line is so long, it could take us an hour just to reach the zaap. Oh well, no choice, and there's no point in whining about it, I have a lot of time, and nothing to do at the moment. Just as I expected, we finally reach a booth, which isn't surprising because they charge for everything. They charge for the both of us, which would have cheaper if it was just me, but no, I had to pay for the extra weight. Fortunately, it isn't that expensive, and pay the toll. They let us pass, and we go through the portal.

We come out to an open road, with green fields to the sides, the blue sky with some little clouds, and the warm sun. It takes me a moment to adjust to the light, and I look at the Sram. She takes a bit longer, but when she's ready, a look away. Then, I hear a gasp coming from the Sram, and I look back at her. She has her eyes wide open, and starts looking around. Then, she looks at the grass, runs to it, sits on it, and starts touching it.

"Oh my god," says the Sram, and then, she grabs a little bit in her hand.

"What's wrong?" I ask, and I'm honestly confused about it.

"Is this…grass?" Okay, that's weird.

"Yes, that's grass." Then, she looks at the sky, and points at something.

"What's that wool-looking thing?" I look at the sky, and look for something like that, which is a cloud.

"That's a cloud."

"It's so pretty!" That does it.

"Let me ask you this, how long have been in Brakmar?" She gets up, while looking at the sky, and answers something unbelievable.

"My whole life." Then, she looks at me. "I've been in there my whole life." She starts to approach me, and I can see a tear on her eye. "Since the day I was born, I've been in Brakmar, in the city of darkness." She stops once she gets close to me. "I've never seen the green soft grass, never seen a floating cloud in the sky, and I've never seen the bright orb in the sky."

"The sun." I can't believe she has never seen it.

"And you," she points at me with a finger, "you took me with you, out of the city, even after what I did."

"Let's be honest, you would have kept trying anyways."

"And you still took me with you." I was about to say something, but she suddenly grabs me in a hug. "Thank you, thank you so much." This is a little awkward, and we weren't the only ones coming out of the portal.

"Okay, okay," I say, and tap her a few times on the back, "that's enough." I lightly push her away from me.

"Sorry, I'm just…happy."

"I can see that." We stand there and look at each other for a few moments, before I break the silence. "Well, I'm done here, later." Then, I turn around, and start to leave to my next destination.

"Let me come with you." I immediately stop, and turn around.

"We had an agreement, I would get you out of the city, and that was it. I don't care where you go, or what you do, remember?" I turn back, and resume my path. After walking a few steps, I can hear someone behind me, and I look behind me. The Sram seems to have gotten a bit closer, but I might be imagining things. I look away, and continue on my path, but once again, I hear footsteps behind me, which makes me turn around again. Okay, the Sram seems to be at the same distance, even though I got farther from the portal. "Are you following me?" Please goddess, make her say no.

"Nope." That was suspicious.

"Okay." I turn back, start walking, but on the second step, I quickly turn around, and see the Sram taking a step forward. "Stop following me."

"I'm not."

"You're following me."

"I just happen to go the same way you're going."

"Stop following me."

"I can be of use."

"I don't need help. Now, go away." I turn around, and start to leave. Unfortunately, I hear her following me, but I ignore her this time. She will eventually get tired, and decide to leave me, it's just a matter of time.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

It's a beautiful day for a walk, the sky is clear, the fields are green, the sun is warm, but there's one thing that's ruining everything for me. I've been walking for half an hour already, and the Sram is still following me. The only consolation that I have, is the fact that she hasn't said anything since I started walking.

"Where are you from?" asks the Sram, which pretty much ruined everything.

"Somewhere," I say, trying to give the message that I don't want to talk.

"Where is 'somewhere'?"

"Somewhere."

"Why did you leave?"

"Because of a reason."

"What was it?" Holy chalice, can't she get the message, or she's just ignoring it? I stop walking, turn around, and look at her in the eye.

"If I answer your questions, will you shut up for a minute?" She answers with a nod. I turn around, and continue walking. "First of all, I'm from Bonta. As to why I left, it's none of your business."

"How long have you been traveling?"

"Didn't you say that you would shut up if I answer your questions?"

"I have more questions."

"Well, too bad. You only asked two, and I answered them." After that, she stays silent, which is a relief. However, it didn't last long, and she starts asking questions.

"What's your name?"

"The minute hasn't passed."

"Yes it did." Okay, I have to hear this. I stop, and turn around.

"How do you know that?"

"I counted." What the Shustuft Crust.

"Are you telling me that you counted every single second, just to ask me questions again?" She nods, and I have no words for it.

"You haven't answer my question." She's really set on knowing that.

"Give me your name and I'll give you mine." I get a strange reaction out of her. Her eyes waver, and starts to look at the ground.

"I can't." This is getting weird.

"Why?" She looks at me in the eye, and says.

"I have no name." That's kind of sad because it means that she was abandoned, but it does beg the question. If she was abandoned, how did she survive in the city?

"Didn't anyone give you a name?" She starts to look around again, and starts saying something.

"I was just a number, one of the many in the temple, but they kicked me out." Then, she grabs her head, and her eyes start to tear up. "I couldn't do it, I just couldn't do it. How could anyone do it?" Okay, I think I heard enough

"Emily!" I yell at her, and that gets her attention. "What do you think?" She looks at me with a puzzled look on her face.

"Emily?"

"Yeah, I thought I could give you ideas for a name. So, what do you think about Emily?" I think she starts to ponder on the name.

"Emily." Then, she smiles. "Yeah, it sounds nice."

"Then Emily it is, and I'm Zoe," I extend a hand to her, "nice to meet you." She looks at my hand, looks at me, and shakes it.

"Nice to meet you." She seems better now, which is good, and makes me smile without meaning to. I let go, turn around, and continue on my way, with her following behind. "Thank you." I don't know if she's thanking me for helping her with the name, or for not asking about her little fit.

"I still don't want you to follow me." I feel like I need to remind her about it.

"I know." Good to know, but it doesn't get rid of her. We continued walking for most of the day, until it started to get dark. I decided to set my bag between bushes, so no one would see it and try to steal it. I look at Emily, she looks at me, and there was no helping it.

"Come on in," I say. She smiles, goes into my bag, and I follow behind her.

We're eating something for dinner, which is some oatmeal, and all of the sudden, I realize something. I normally wouldn't care about it, but the curiosity started to get the best of me.

"Hey, Emily," I say, which makes her stop eating, and gives me her attention, "if you wanted to get out of the city, why didn't you take the money I gave you, and left?"

"Where would I go?"

"I don't know, anywhere you wanted?"

"I wouldn't know where to go?" I believe that, but she seems old enough to know. Wait, that give me another question.

"How old are you?"

"I'm eighteen, you?" She's eighteen!? She looks younger than that, with those small breasts of hers, and young face.

"I'm twenty four."

"Whoa, you're way older than me."

"Yes, I am, which makes me an adult, and you should listen to adults."

"I'm an adult."

"No, you're a young girl, and you should listen to me."

"Like when you tell me to stop following you?"

"Exactly."

"But I'm not following you, I just–" I know where that's going.

"Happen to go the same way as me." I go back to my food, and she does the same. Then, it hit me, a great idea that would make her go away, and the fact that she's from Brakmar makes it easier. "You know, while I was in Brakmar, I passed by a brothel." She continues to eat, but I continue anyways. "It had some sexy ladies outside, with this dresses that left most of their chest exposed. If I remember correctly, there was an Ecaflip, a Cra, an Osamoda, and an Iop." She's still eating, but this is where I make my move. "Unfortunately, I was too busy at the moment. Otherwise, I would have taken one of them into a room, and enjoy their company." That's when Emily finally gives me her attention, but I don't see any surprise on her face.

"To do what?" Is she serious, or she just playing around?

"It was a brothel, what do you think it's for?" She shrugs her shoulders, and says.

"I don't know, I've never been in one, but I've heard some screaming in them." Oh my goddess, she's serious.

"Emily, those girls were prostitutes, a brothel has prostitutes in them."

"What do they do?" I don't know what to think about this, but I answer anyways. Maybe this time, she will get the message.

"They get paid for sex."

"Oh, that explains the screaming." At least she knows what sex is.

"Yes, and I would have taken one, to have sex with her." She stops eating, looks at me, not showing any emotion, and asks.

"Which one would you pick?"

"What?" I wasn't expecting that kind of question from her.

"If you could, would you pick the Ecaflip, Cra, or Osamodas?"

"Oh, well, I would pick the Ecaflip."

"Why?"

"I found her more attractive than the rest."

"Oh, okay." Then, she goes back to eating, which leave me speechless. She doesn't seem disgusted, or troubled, so I ask her.

"Don't you find it gross?"

"What?"

"The fact that I like women."

"Not everyone in Brakmar is the same." In all honesty, I have to agree because she just proved that.

"Don't you find it awkward in the least to sleep in the same bag as me?"

"Not really, I don't think I'm your type." I don't know, she's actually pretty cute, with the little nose, big bright eyes, and long hair. She doesn't have the curves, or a big chest, but I'm not that picky.

"You'd be surprised." Why the fuck would I blurt that out? I blame it on the fact that I haven't done it in a while. Fortunately for me, she doesn't look too much into it, and goes back to her food. I think I dodged a bullet with that one.

With our meals done, we put the dishes away, and go to sleep. I hope tomorrow she decides to leave in the middle of the night. I mean, maybe she was hiding it, and thought that it would be awkward to leave right away, or she might be waiting until we reach the town. Yeah, that might be it, she might leave me alone once we reach the town, I hope.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

After traveling for two whole days, we finally reach the town, which is good that we did. My supplies are starting to run low because I had food for one person, not for two. We enter into town, which is a very simple one, with a lot of one-story to two-story buildings, a windmill, and a lot of farm land. What we do find it strange, is that there's no one outside, and the farmland seems to be empty of grain, or whatever it is that they plant here.

"Where's everyone?" asks Emily while looking around.

"That's the same question I'm asking myself," I say, and we continue on our way. Then, I hear a door opening to our left, we turn towards it, and we see an old Enutrof peeking through the gap on the door.

"Get over here, quickly," says the old Enutrof in a small voice.

"Why? What's going on here?" He's the first person we see since we got here, and I need some answers here.

"There's no time, get over here before they see you." Who are "they"?

"Hey, you two!" says someone from behind us. We turn around, and we see a group of seven Grambos coming towards us. Not only that, we can see that they're pulling a wagon behind them.

"What are those?" asks Emily.

"Those are Grambos," I answer, "little troublemakers, not much of a threat, but they might be the ones that are making this a ghost town."

"Listen up, you two, if you don't want to get hurt, give us all of your possessions!" yells a Grambo with a scythe.

"All right, you little scoundrels, if you don't want to get hurt, you will leave that wagon, and get out of this town."

"So you want this the hard way? Fine by us!" says another Grambo with two spikes wrapped on it's wrists, and they all charge towards us. Emily quickly pulls out her scythe and slices the air, which sends a shock wave that takes two of them out. I, on the other hand, hit two Grambos with two Rejectattoos. Two Grambos get close to us, and start attacking us with their weapons. I dodge it's attacks without problem, but I see a knife coming my way, and barely duck in time. The Grambo that's close to the wagon, decided to attack from afar. So, after I dodge another attack to my head, I grab the Grambo from afar with a tattoo, while I kick the one attacking me with a Rocky Foot. With that one out of the way, I pull the other Grambo towards me, and hit it with a Blood Rush. With those two out of the way, I turn towards Emily, to see if she needs help, which she doesn't. She disappears into the shadows, appears right behind the Grambo, and hit it with a kick to the head.

"So, you can actually fight?" I ask Emily. If she wanted to steal from me, why didn't she fought like she did now?

"I was hungry at the time," answers Emily. The Grambos around us start to get up, but instead of looking for another fight, they start to quickly run away. One of them turns around, and yells.

"Just you wait, we'll get the boss, and he will teach you a lesson!" After that, the Grambo leaves with the rest of his group, and leaving the wagon behind.

"And I'll punch him in the face, just like I punched you!" I yell back, and I'm not kidding, I'll definitely punch him if he comes looking for trouble. After they left, people started coming out of their houses, they started to approach us, and the wagon. A crowd gathers in front of us, and among them, steps up a Sadida, but not just any Sadida. She was a very hot Sadida, with a beautiful dark complexion, long flowing green hair, and even though she's wearing farming clothes, it shows a bit of those amazing breasts.

"Greetings, travelers, my name is Sally, and we want to thank you in driving those pesky Grambos away," says Sally, which makes it my opportunity to shine.

"It was the least we could do, but I think there's more to it than just those weaklings," I say, trying to sound as heroic as possible.

"There is, but let's not talk out here, you must be exhausted from your travels. Let's go to my house, it's not far from here."

"We would be grateful," I turn to Emily, "right?"

"Oh, yes, I'm starting to get hungry," says Emily, which is what I expected.

"Then follow me," says Sally, turns around, and starts walking away.

We follow her to a house that has farmland next to it. We go in, and I find the house to have that hospitable air about it. It also seem to have a lot of plants in it, which is to be expected from a Sadida, but other than that, it seems pretty nice and comfy.

"Now then, take a seat, while I go and prepare something for the two of you," says Sally and heads straight to her kitchen. We give our thanks, and do as she suggested. "So, what brings the two of you to our troubled little town?"

"We just happened to pass by, until we noticed how empty the town was," I say.

"Well, as you could see, it wasn't exactly empty, we were just hiding from those Grambos."

"Are they a constant nuisance around here?"

"More than you think, miss…?"

"I'm Zoe, and this is Emily." I point at the Sram sitting next to me.

"Hello," says Emily.

"Well, nice to meet you," says Sally, turns around with two plates on her hands, and puts them on the table, "and here is your meal." She made piwi broth, and also gets some bread for us. We start to eat, and she takes a seat on the table.

"So, how long has this been going on?" I ask.

"It's been going on for a few weeks now. They come around, take our food, and leave," says Sally.

"I guess you can't keep making the crops grow fast without tiring yourself out, or running out of resources."

"That's right, I'm left with just enough strength to keep us from starving."

"Are there guards nearby that can help you?"

"There are, but by the time they get here, the Grambos are already gone, and they can't find them afterwards."

"They probably didn't have a Sram with them," says Emily, which actually makes sense.

"Think you can find where they're hiding?" I ask.

"They're probably using some magic, or secret passage to enter into their hideout. I'm pretty sure I can find where they're hiding."

"Great, Sally, where do they usually go when they're done with the town?"

"They always go east of here," says Sally.

"Then it's settled, we'll go in, strike first, and end their little raids for good."

"You don't know how wonderful it is to hear that, and how dangerous it sounds."

"Don't worry, we're pretty strong, just as we demonstrated with those Grambos."

"Yeah, about that, there's actually more of them. I'm not exactly sure how many, but I think they have a small army of Grambos."

"I've faced many monsters and enemies before. Besides, I'll have her help if things get too difficult." Emily stops eating and looks at me with suspicion in her face.

"You'll let me go into their hideout with you?" asks Emily.

"I might be strong, but I'm not invincible, and they might have traps ready for intruders."

"Okay, I see what you mean."

"Sounds like you two have a plan, but I do wonder about something," says Sally.

"What's that?" I ask.

"What would you like in return? We don't have much, but we could give you some food for your journey."

"You don't have to, we've come here to resupply, and we're willing to pay for it," I lean closer to Sally, "but if I were to ask for something, maybe you and I could go somewhere afterwards and, I don't know, spend some time together?" After I say that, she raise an eyebrow, and leans closer to me.

"Are you asking me out?"

"Would you be offended if I say yes?"

"I would be flattered." She winks at me after saying that, which pretty much shows that she's interested. Not only that, it also says that I'll finally get some action if I play it right, and after we get rid of those Grambos. We finish our meals, and she takes the dishes.

"Thanks for the meal," says Emily.

"You're quite welcome," says Sally. We get up from the table, and she walks us to her door.

"Thanks for the hospitality," I say.

"It was my pleasure. I wish you good luck, and pray that Sadida watches over you."

"Very appreciated." After that, we get out of Sally's house, and head east of town.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

We've been walking for a few minutes, and we haven't seen anything suspicious. I'm sure we'll see something if we walk a bit longer. Then, the silence is cut short by none other than Emily.

"It was really nice of you to help them," says Emily.

"Hm? Oh, yeah," I say, and I keep walking, but I stop hearing her footsteps. It makes me stop, and I turn around to see what happened. She was just standing in place, and looking at me with a confused look.

"You were going to help them, right?"

"Well, I need food."

"You said you were going to pay for it anyways."

"I was going to ask for food as a reward, but something better came up." Emily seems to start thinking on something, and it didn't last long, before she looked at me again, but in disbelief.

"Are you doing this just to sleep with her?" I walk up to her, put both hands on her shoulders, and say.

"Look, I don't ask much from you–"

"You've asked me multiple times to stop following you."

"But I'm going to ask that you don't ruin this for me. It's been a while since the last time I've done it, and this might be my only chance to get some, okay?" Emily doesn't respond, she simply looks down at the ground.

"I thought you were a hero." I've no idea where she got that idea.

"That's because I'm not a hero, and never said that I was." Emily looks at me with a sad face.

"Then, what are you?"

"Believe it or not, I'm just an adventurer. I go from place to place, going into dungeons, fighting monsters, bandits, getting treasures, selling treasures, and whenever possible, have some fun with the ladies." I can tell that she didn't like that answer, and looks away from me, but doesn't slap my hands away or anything. "Look, I may not be the hero that you hear in some fairy tale, who wears shining armor and saves princesses, but I'm not an evil person." It seems like she started to think on my words, so I keep going. "If I was a truly evil person, I would have taken their food, punched whoever got in my way, and left them to fend for themselves, or worse, but I won't do anything like that." I let go of her, and start pointing around while I keep talking. I don't know why I do that, but I do it anyways. "As you can see, I'm going to get rid of the Grambos, save the town from more thefts, I'll get some fun, Sally will get some fun, and everyone gets happy."

"Well, I guess you have a point."

"See? Now, let's keep going, or we'll never get there." Emily looks at me, gives me a small smile, and nods.

After walking for twenty minutes, we reach what looks like a hill, with some grass, and rocks. There were other hills farther away, but this one is the closest one to the town. We get close to the hill, and I start looking around, trying to find some marks, or a clue that would guide us to an entrance, but I find nothing. However, I think Emily has some idea because she starts checking on the rocks.

"Found anything?" I ask while I walk up to her.

"If I'm not mistaken, there must be some kind of secret switch disguised as something, and if my instincts are correct, it would be something like this," she says as she pushes some small rock, and a cave starts to open.

"That's a Sram for you. Now, you wait out here, while I go and clean the place." I start to walk into the cave, but Emily stops me.

"Wait, you said I could come with you."

"It's for your own good." I continue on my way, but Emily grabs me from behind, and stops me. "I told you it's–"

"Don't move." Okay, something's going on here.

"Why?" She points at something on the ground, and I look for it, but I don't see anything. She let's go of me, moves next to me, pulls a knife, kneels down, and seems to cut something carefully. She grabs something between her fingers, and tries to show it to me.

"It was a tripwire." She either has some super eyes on her, or she used some kind of spell, but instead of wondering, I just ask about it.

"How did you know it was there?"

"I looked for it. I wondered why we didn't see them on our way here. So I came to the conclusion that they probably decided to wait for us, and use traps against us." Wow, I mean, I knew Grambos were mechanically inclined, but this was surprisingly well thought out. I can tell that she feels smug about it, and I have to admit, if there are more traps in there, I will need her to get through them. I know she's waiting to hear it, and as much as it pains me to do it, I start saying the words.

"All right, you can come with me." She quickly gets up from the ground, and gives me this big smile that makes her look like a child. "Lead the way." With that said, she gets a few steps ahead of me, and we enter the secret hideout of the Grambos.

We're walking through a long corridor, which is fortunately illuminated by torches on the walls. Just as Emily said, the corridor was filled with traps, sometimes holes on the ground, pressure plates, more tripwires, and so on. At the end, we see some branching paths, two going to the sides, and one going forward. We don't say anything while we're inside, so we don't alarm anyone inside that would sound some kind of alarm. I point to the left, but Emily points to the other side. To avoid any conflict, and avoid wasting time, we go with her choice. The corridor didn't have any traps, which means that they didn't expect us to get that far without activating one of their traps. We reach a door, and Emily decides to try and hear what's on the other side. She put her ear on the door, and I do the same.

"You think they'll find our hideout?" says a voice from the other side.

"Ha! They'll never find this place," says another voice, and how wrong he is, "and even if they do, they'll fall prey to our traps."

"I guess you're right."

"Of course I'm right. Now, let's go and check the storage." This is going to be fun. We step back from the door, but I wait right in front of it. When the door opens, I kick the Grambo in front with a Rocky Foot, and I also hit the other Grambo behind him, which send them flying to the other side of the room. We quickly enter the room, and see at least four more Grambos. I quickly grab one with a tattoo, pull myself towards him, and give him a Sacrier's Fist to the face. Then, I grab another Grambo close by, and punch him with a Blood Rush. I look at the other Grambos, who are on the ground and have knives on their chests. It seems to be a normal living room, or as normal as it is for the Grambos. With nothing else to do here, we leave the room. We go to the way that I pointed, and find another room, which was pretty much the same as the previous one. We beat the Grambos in there, and leave the room.

We continue through the hideout, going into each room, and beating the Grambos in them. We enter one of the rooms, and discover that it's the storeroom. I'm just amazed by the sight of such a large amount of food, from fruits to meats. Then, I notice eyes on me, and look at Emily. As expected, she was staring at me, and I can tell what it was all about.

"I promise I won't take any of it. I said I will pay for it, and that's what I'm going to do when we get back," I say, and it seems to put Emily at ease. "However, I do expect to get some action."

"Understood," says Emily, and we leave the room. At the end of the corridor, we see a more elaborate door, which makes it obvious that it's the boss's room. I'm proud to say that I'm a Sacrier with manners, and I would never barge in without permission, but in this situation, I kick the door open. We enter, and discover a very large room. We see a person sitting behind the table at the end of the room, and a flag on the wall, which has a very familiar symbol on it. I don't remember where I've seen it, but I'm sure I'll remember it.

"I should have known that the Grambos would fail to get rid of you," says the man sitting at the table. He was taller than the Grambos, had goggles on his helmet, which had some kind of red spiky hair on the back, epaulettes with spikes, a breastplate, greaves, gauntlets, a belt with a big buckle, and booths with a spike at the tip. I can tell he's a Masqueraider because he's wearing one of those weird masks. Wait a minute, I just remembered something about the symbol on the flag, and that uniform. The moment I remembered that, I get a frown on my face, and I clench my fists. He belongs to none other, than the Ogrest's Cult.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

"I was expecting just a bunch of Grambos being Grambos, but I wasn't expecting to find the Ogrest's Cult behind all this," I say.

"Ogrest's Cult?" says Emily, and I look at her.

"You don't know them?"

"Getting food was more important than gossip." She has a fair point.

"Basically, it's a stupid cult that reveres Ogrest as a god, even though he's not a god at all, just some crazy, but very powerful, monster."

"A simple monster couldn't defeat all twelve gods from Mount Zinit, now could it?" says the Masqueraider.

"Sorry, whatever your name is, which I'm not interested in knowing, but I'm about to put an end to all of this, free the town from your tyranny, and knock you out with a punch to the face."

"On the contrary," he says, and snaps his fingers. The walls on the side open, and six Grambos get into the room. "I will continue what we've started here, keep the town under my thumb, and I will end your lives."

"Uh, I don't think you know, but we just beat a bunch of Grambos on the way here. I think there were like forty or fifty of them."

"Forty six," says Emily, and it makes me think that she's obsessed with counting or something.

"Don't worry, those were just grunts, these are the elite Grambos. Seasoned fighters, trained specifically to defeat intruders like you," says the Masqueraider. Each Grambo had a different weapon, like a sword, gauntlets with claws, a scythe, and so on.

They charge towards us, and I try to grab one with a tattoo, but miss. One of them jumps towards me, and attacks with his axes. He was too fast for me to dodge, which forces me to block with my arms. I push him away, but right after that, a Grambo with a scythe tries to cut my head off, so I duck. I try to punch him with a Blood Rush, but a knife hits me in the shoulder. Then, the Grambo with the scythe dash past me, grabs my leg with the scythe, and pulls. I lose my balance, fall on my knees, and I hear someone above me. I look up just in time to see a Grambo falling with his axes aimed at my head. I roll out of the way, I hear a laugh, look to my side, and see the Grambo with the clawed gauntlets throwing knives at me. I roll out of the way again, and I prepare to grab him with my tattoo. Unfortunately, a Grambo grabs my arm with his scythe, pulls, and makes me miss. Thanks to my coagulation, their weapons can't cut me so easily, but I'm getting sick and tired of him anyways. So, I grab the scythe, I see the Grambo with the axes jumping towards me, and I throw him the other Grambo. It hits him, and they quickly recover in the air, but it gives me enough time to see how Emily was doing. She wasn't doing any better than me, she was doing her best in fending off the other three Grambos, but I can see that she got a cut on her left arm. I don't get another moment, before a knife comes flying towards me. I block it with my arm, and I see the Grambo with the axes coming my way. If I want to make it a one versus two, I have to get rid of that Grambo throwing his annoying knives. So, I use my Light Speed spell, and dash towards him. When I get closer to him, I grab him with a tattoo, pull him towards me, and punch him with a Blood Rush. Unfortunately, someone hits me in the back of my shoulder, I look behind me, and see the Grambo with the scythe ready to attack. I quickly use my other arm, to elbow him in the face, and knock him out. I look the other side, see the Grambo with the axes approaching me, and grab his face. Then, I slam him to the floor so hard, that he bounces, and I take the opportunity to hit him with a Blood Rush. It sends him flying to the other side of the room, hits the wall, and falls to the floor. With my enemies on the ground, I check on Emily, who was on the floor, and all three Grambos falling towards her. I was about to grab her with one of my tattoos, but she quickly disappears in the shadows, and leaving behind some dark sphere on the ground. The Grambos fall on the sphere, it explodes, and sends the Grambos into the air. Then, Emily reappears, pulls out her scythe, slices upwards, and hits them with a shock wave. They hit the ceiling, she steps back, and hits them with another shock wave just in time before they hit the floor. The attack sends them flying to the other side of the room, but they don't hit the wall. It makes me feel like a winner because I sent a Grambo flying, and he did hit the wall. With her fight over, she approaches me, and stands next to me.

"So, how are you holding up?" I ask.

"Could be worse," she says while holding the cut on her arm, and I agree with her. She might have gotten a few more cuts on her, some of them a little deep, but it's better than being dead. Then, we hear clapping, which makes us turn to it's source. It turns out to be the cultist, who has a smile on his face, which I think is his face, since Masqueraiders are almost always wearing some mask.

"Congratulations, you defeated my elite Grambos, but there's one little problem," says the Masqueraider, which I can tell what it is.

"Yeah, I'm going to kick your ass," I respond, before he goes on about him being the last one, the tough one, and so on.

"Unfortunately for you, that's where you're wrong." He gets up from his seat, and puts on a different mask. It's red, has a big smile, and two horns. If my memory isn't failing me right now, I think they call it the Lunatic Mask. "I'll be the one to crush you both." Then, he jumps over the table, spins in the air, grabs one of his horns, lands on his feet, and throws the table towards us. I step forward, and punch it with a Blood Rush, but it was only a distraction. He suddenly appears in front of me, and kicks me right in the stomach. The blow sends me flying back, I hit the wall behind me, and fall on my ass. I try to recover, but while I'm doing that, I hear Emily trying to fight the Masqueraider. By the time I finally recover, I see her being thrown to a wall, which she hits, and falls to the floor. Then, I see him preparing to use another horn, which is actually a sort of whip. I quickly grab Emily with a tattoo just in time the cultist attacked with his whip, and pull her towards me. I get us both off the ground, and I check on her.

"Can you keep fighting?" I ask.

"Yes, and you?" she asks.

"I'm a Sacrier, pain is kind of my thing."

"Come on, ladies, we're just getting started," says the Masqueraider, and he does have a point.

"All right, Emily, let's give him a beat down he won't forget." Emily responds with a smile on her face, and a nod. She starts the fight by throwing her knives, which the Masqueraider easily dodges, and attacks her with his whip. I step in front of her, and block the whip with my arm. He pulls himself towards me and tries to kick me in the head, but I block it with my other arm. Then, he pushes away from me using his other leg, just in time to avoid knives coming his way. He pulls his whip away from my arm, but I throw my tattoo at him. He spins in the air, dodges my tattoo, and the moment he lands, I use my Light Speed spell to get closer to him. Unfortunately, he changes to the Coward Mask, and shoots me with a stream of water, or I hope it's water. Otherwise, I will be so pissed, I will make it my personal mission to kick him in the nuts. He gets farther away from me, and starts to shoot us both with balls of water. I dodge them by rolling away, and try to catch him with my tattoo, but moves away while shooting. Emily also dodges while throwing her knives, but he manage to dodge them. Then, we both rush at him, and he tries to shoot us with water, but we manage to dodge them. When we get close to him, he quickly switch to the Lunatic Mask, pulls out the whips, jumps in the air, and starts spinning in the air with them. He hits us both with them and sends us flying back, but I land on my feet, while Emily falls to the floor. Then, the Masqueraider grabs me with one of his whips, pulls himself towards me, and kicks me in the stomach again. He sends me flying, I hit the floor, roll for a bit, before stopping, and lying face down.

"You know, I like fighting your type, what with that confidence, feeling that hope of winning against someone completely above your level. It just makes it fun when I see your faces, full of despair, and fear when I deal the finishing blow," says the cultist, which sounds kind of familiar, and the last person who used those kinds of words ended up with my foot up his ass. Yeah, maybe I'll give him a kick in the ass. I struggle to get up from the ground, but managed to do it anyways. Then, I take off my vest, and throw it to the side. "Oh well, let's get this over with." He attacks me with both whips, I let them out, and I grab them with my hands. "What?! Wait, how's this possible?" I feel him pulling his whips, but I don't let go. "What's going on here? What are you doing!?" It's funny, I thought he would know.

"Can't you tell? I'm a Sacrier, no pain, no gain. I'm sure you've heard of that before," I say with a smile on my face. "You see, the more damaged I get, the stronger I get, but that's not all," I pull him closer without much difficulty. "When I get to a certain amount of damage, I get these." I point at my new pair of arms, which are orange. He lets go of his whips, and switches to the Coward Mask, and starts to shoot me a stream of water. I put my new arms in front of me, and start to push forward. He starts to increase the strength of the stream, which stops me, but I hear a scream of pain, and the stream stops. I look at him, and notice a knife on his leg. I look to the side, and see Emily propping herself with one arm, and the other arm extended. I take the opportunity to throw a tattoo, grab him, and pull him towards me. When he gets close enough, I give him a headbutt to the face, which cracks his mask, and knocks him out.

"Zoe, you did it!" yells Emily from her spot, and with a smile on her face.

"No, we did it," I say with a smile on my face, and she gets an even bigger smile on hers.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Right now, me and Emily are walking back to town with the cultist on my shoulder. It was fortunate that I always carry some rope in my bag, just in case I have to capture evil criminals, and take them to the authorities. I mostly do that for the bounty, and this time, I'm doing it to get a lady. Emily was carrying his masks, and walking behind me, just in case the Masqueraider wakes up to cause trouble. After walking for half an hour, we finally get back to town, and I think someone noticed us because a crowd starts to approach us. Among them, Sally was walking in front of the crowd, with a worried look on her face.

"My god, are you two okay?" asks Sally, and I can understand why she would ask that. We don't exactly look like it was a walk in the park. Emily had bruises here and there, with a cheek getting a bit of swelling. Her arm still has the cut she got in the fight against the elite Grambos, and another one on her side. I used my Sanguine Armor spell to heal her a bit, but everyone could see that there was some bleeding. On my end, my clothes are damaged, thanks to that Grambo with the scythe, who also gave me cuts on my arms and on my leg. My arms are bruised, thanks to the Grambo with the axes, and my mid section hurts because of the cultist's kicks.

"We could be worse, but an Eniripsa wouldn't hurt," I say, and I do hope that they have one in the town. Then, the Masqueraider on my shoulder starts to stir.

"Who's that?" asks Sally.

"This, my dear Sally," I say, and throw the cultist to the ground, "is the one that was behind the raids on your town. A Masqueraider, who just happens to be a member of the Ogrest's Cult." Some people in the crowd got frowns on their faces.

"I see, we'll get the guard to come and get our 'friend'." A few volunteers approach the Masqueraider, pull him up, and start dragging him away. "In the meantime, we can lock him up in a shed while the guards get here."

"Good, and you will need some wagons," I say with a smile, and Sally starts to smile.

"Is it what I think it is?"

"That's right, and trust me, it's a lot." Some people in crowd quickly leave, which I assume is to get the wagons. When they're ready, I told them the direction of the cultist's hideout, and they leave right away. It's a good thing that Emily disarmed the traps while we left the place.

"Now, how about we get you some medical help?" asks Sally.

"We would really appreciate that," I say, and we immediately follow her to the Eniripsa's place.

Me and Emily spend some time in the Eniripsa's house, while he heals our wounds using his brush. In normal circumstances, we would be wrapped in bandages and resting in a bed, but with Eniripsa's magic, it doesn't even take five minutes to get us completely recovered. Even our clothes magically fix themselves. However, instead of walking out, I asked the Eniripsa if he would allows us to rest in his clinic, and he says yes. Emily took a bed, while I put my bag on the floor, went inside, and went to my bed to take a nap.

I wake up an hour later, feeling fully rested, and leave my bag. Emily starts to stir, and I notice the old Eniripsa leave his clinic, probably to get something.

"Sleep well?" I ask, and she rubs her eyes.

"Good morning," she says.

"It's still the afternoon."

"Oh, right."

"Come on, we need to check on the prisoner and make sure that they got their food back." Emily gets up from bed, and we walk out of the clinic. What we find was something completely unexpected, the people of the town were waiting outside. The moment we come out, the people cheer, approach us, and get carried away to somewhere.

"What's going on?" asks Emily.

"I don't know, but by the smiles on their faces, it must be something good," I answer. It actually takes a big person to carry me, while a smaller one was carrying Emily, which makes it a little funny. We're taken to, what I assume, is the town's tavern. They put us down, took us inside, and we can see that many more people were already inside. Some people were already eating, drinking, playing music, or dancing. The moment they see us, they cheer, and we're guided to a long table. We take a seat, and Sally approach us.

"Good to see you two up," says Sally, and sits next to me.

"What's with the party?" I ask.

"It's to celebrate our heroes for getting rid of the cultist and his Grambos."

"Then the guard already took him?"

"Exactly."

"That's great, and the food that was stolen?"

"We already took it all back, and stored it away." After Sally said that, a Pandawa waitress came to us, and gave our plates, which had a lot of food.

"What would our heroes like to drink?" asks the waitress with a smile.

"Bamboo milk for me," I say.

"Api juice, please," says Emily, which is good because I don't know if she can even hold her drink.

"No problem, I'll be right back," says the waitress and left.

After that, we simply start to eat our food, and enjoy ourselves. I finish with my food, and I could see that Emily is also done with her food, but surprisingly enough, she asks for seconds. It makes me wonder if she has a second stomach, or if it's part of growing up. I simply stay in my seat, waiting for the food to settle, and listening to the music. While taking a sip of my drink, Sally decides to have some small talk with me, and I see that she was also done with her food. We converse over little things, and every once in a while, we would tell a joke. I don't know if she's trying to be subtle, but I can tell she's interested. For example, she would touch my arm or back when she laughs, she would move in a certain way, and I do notice that she's closer than before. I can even tell that she moved her hair to expose her neck, and I have to admit that I'm enjoying the sight. Then, she seems to notice something, and says that she loved the song that the musicians were playing. She gets up from her seat, grabs my hand, and starts to pull me close to the musicians. I can tell she wants to dance, which I don't mind because I've learned throughout my travels. We start to dance, and I can tell that she knows what she's doing, her moves making her look even more gorgeous. Still, regardless of the reason behind it, it's still pretty fun. Near the end of the song, I pull her close to me, pressing that wonderful body of hers into mine. That pretty face of hers was pretty close, and without thinking, I slowly start to lean in for a kiss. She doesn't move away, and I'm about to kiss those perfect lips, until she puts a finger on my mouth. I'm really confused, I thought she was interested, or maybe I read that wrong.

"Not yet," she whispers to me, and looks away. Okay, if she's trying to leave me hot and bothered, she's doing a very good job, but I can't be mad at her. Besides, it means that something marvelous will happen later. I look at the same direction as her, and I see Emily surrounded by other townsfolk. Judging by the gestures, she's telling them how we cleared out the cultist's hideout.

We spend most of the day talking, and playing with the townsfolk, which for me involved some arm wrestling, while Emily played some darts. By the time I checked the clock, it was almost midnight, and many of the townsfolk were already leaving, or passed out on a table or on the floor. Speaking of passed out, I check on Emily, and I see that she was half asleep on the floor with a mug on her hand.

"Emily, what did you drink?" I ask her. She looks at me, looks at the mug, then looks back at me.

"Well, I wanted to try that bamboo milk that you were drinking, and the place started to spin," she says.

"How many did you drink?" I think I can guess.

"I don't remember." Figures.

"That's her first one," says the Pandawa waitress, which I found it both informative, and funny at the same time.

"Do you have any rooms in here?"

"Of course, let me get a key for you." The waitress leaves us, and I stay with Emily.

"Next time, ask them to water down the milk." I wait for a response, and I get nothing because Emily just happen to fall asleep. The waitress comes back with a key, and gives it to me.

"Upstairs, second door to your left."

"Thanks." She leaves to clean the tables, while I pick Emily up in my arms, and go upstairs, with Sally following behind me.

"I'm still surprised that she was able to eat all that, considering her size," says Sally.

"That makes two of us." We reach the door, and I try to open it, but Sally takes the key.

"Allow me." She opens the door, we walk in, and I put Emily on one of the beds. Then, I hear the click of a door, turn around, and find Sally leaning on the door. She starts to slowly walk towards me, a seductive smile on her face, and with a look of desire in her eyes. When she reaches me, she wraps her arms around my neck, and I wrap mine around her waist. There's no denying, I lean in, she pulls me forward, and we kiss. It was normal at first, just our lips touching, but when she pulled back, I moved in to have a deeper kiss. I only touch her lips with my tongue, making sure to have her permission to enter, which she gives me without hesitation. I lock my lips with hers, and my tongue gains entry without resistance. While my mouth was busy, one of my hands starts to drop to her well-shaped rump, and fondle it. Sally moans into my mouth, and pulls away to catch her breath.

"Say, how about we continue spending time together somewhere more private?" asks Sally.

"Well, the girl is asleep, the door is locked, and I have my haven bag," I say, pull my bag, and drop it to the floor. "After you." I invite her into my bag.

"What a gentlewoman." She enters my bag, and I follow right behind her.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

I enter my bag, and I see Sally looking around it. Personally, I don't think it's that bad, I keep it clean, and even though I don't have any decoration, I like it just the way it is.

"Very cozy in here," says Sally. I walk up behind her, wrap my arms around her, and start to kiss her neck.

"Thank you," I say, grab one of her breasts, and start to fondle it. I would prefer to touch it directly, but even through her clothes, I can tell that it's so deliciously soft. She moans, turns around, and pulls me in for a kiss. While kissing her, I start to touch and caress as much as I could, going from her back, to her magnificent rear. When we separate to grab some air, I pick her up in my arms, and start to carry her to my bed. On the way, she decided to give me some attention, giving me soft kisses, and nibbling on my neck. I wasn't going to let her be the only one giving some love. I start to massage her right breast, and I discover that her nipple is already stiff, so I tease it softly.

When we reach my bed, I gently lower her on it, get on top of her, and go back to kissing. I kiss those soft lips, those cheeks, and kiss my way to her neck. I nibble it a few times, before I give it a gentle lick, eliciting a moan from Sally. While my mouth was working, I start looking for a way to take the obstacle that we call clothes out of the way. First, I unbutton her white blouse, pull it open, and start to fondle those soft breast, but I discover the bra. I could just imagine that little piece of clothing laughing at me, denying me the pleasure of feeling her lovely chest. I was about to get rid of that damnable thing, but I feel her hands on my vest, trying to push it off. I pull back, mostly to grab some air, and take off my vest. With that out of the way, I pull her up, and put her on my lap, which let's me take off her blouse. Even though that annoying bra was still in place, I land some kisses on her chest, and on any exposed flesh of her bosom. Then, she puts her hands on the sides of my face, makes me look up, and lock my lips with a kiss. Okay, no, I will not be denied any longer, I put my hands on the back of her bra, and start to work on the clasp. I've done it before, so it takes a moment just to get rid of it, and when I'm done, I simply throw it to the side. What I see in front of my face is breath taking, they're obviously bigger than mine, they have such perfect shape, and such natural firmness. I don't waste time on just looking, I immediately grab them with both hands, and start to fondle them. The feeling is just what I imagined, wonderfully soft, but I do more than just touching. I start to lick her areola, which gets me a deep moan from Sally, and then, I get her hard nipple into my mouth. I start to suck and lick it, while I play with the other one with my fingers. Of course, it can't be compared, so I let go of the nipple, and grab the other one into my mouth.

"You're like a big baby," says Sally between her pants. Oh my sweet Sadida, you who have the body of a goddess, I'll be your baby if that's what you desire. However, there's so much a baby can do, unlike a woman. While I give her chest the attention it deserves, I use one of my hands to caress her side, and move it down her body, until I reach something. Oh, right, I forgot about that skirt, but no matter, I found the knot keeping it in place, and it was a simple one. I pull on one end of the string, and it quickly untied itself. I really don't want to let go, but in order to get rid of the skirt, I have to make that sacrifice. I move away from that perfect chest, lay her back on the bed, and start to pull the skirt off from Sally, which reminds me that I still have my shirt on. I grab it's hem with both hands, pull it over my head, and once it's off, I hear Sally gasp. I see her looking at me with surprise and wonder in her eyes.

"Such a majestic hero," she says.

"And you, my dear Sally, are as beautiful as a goddess," I say, while I work on my pants. I unbutton it, pull down the zipper, and take my pants off. I toss it to the side, and go back to my Sadida lover. We go back to kissing deeply, but my hands start to explore her body. I start with her side, to her hip, and to her leg. Then, I use a hand to caress her inner thigh, but avoiding her lower lips. She moves her hips in an attempt to feel my hands, but I don't allow it.

"Please, don't tease me like that," she says, and it makes me think. She kind of teased me back in the tavern, but when she begs with that desperate look in her eyes, how can I refuse her? Without warning, I start to rub her cloth-covered sex, which makes her arch her back, and moan out loud. I was expecting her panties to be damp, but not this much, which is a pleasant surprise. I put an arm around her back, and grab her nipple into my mouth, while my hand massage the other one. After giving her the attention she desired for a while, I start to wish for a more personal touch. I pull away from her, grab the last piece of clothing on her, and pull on it. She quickly gets the message and starts to move in a way that let's me get it off from her. I toss it to the side without even looking where it landed, just like the other pieces of clothing. With nothing to obstruct me, I go back to her, and I start to rub her sex. The feeling cannot be compared to before. She's so soft, so wet with desire, and I'm more than happy to deliver. I rub her a little bit more, before I put a finger in her. She gasps a little bit, and pulls my head for a kiss, before I start fingering her. First, I go slow, letting her get use to it, before I start to explore the inside. When I find her spot, she gives me a little jerk, and I keep hitting that spot a bit more, before I decide to add another finger. I start to move my hand faster, making her pull me closer to her, which let's me kiss, and nibble on her neck. Then, I use my free thumb, and get it to work on that little nub of hers. The reaction is instantaneous, she throws her head back, and arches her back again. Oh goddess, she's getting close, good. I press my body on top of hers, pinning her to the bed, and keep going. Her only response is pulling me closer to her, wraps her legs around my waist, and breathing fast. Then, she squeezes my fingers really hard, and screams her pleasure.

When she comes down from it, I slowly pull my fingers out of her, bring them to my mouth, and lick them clean. I don't care what anyone says, to me, this is the honey of the gods.

"Zoe, you certainly know how to please a woman," says Sally between pants.

"Glad to hear that," I say.

"Now, how about I return the favor."

"Yeah, about that," I say, and start to kiss her shoulder, "there's something peculiar about me."

"And what's that?" I move down, and reach her chest.

"I like to give more than receive," I kiss, and lick both breasts, "I mostly took my clothes off, so it didn't seem awkward to you." I move down to her slim stomach, and leave a trail of kisses.

"What a selfless soul." I continue on my way down, and reach between her legs.

"Thank you. Now, are you ready for round two?"

"Trying to kill me with sex?"

"Would you mind?" She puts a hand on the back of my head.

"Not really." She pulls me closer to her. Well, mouth, back to work.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

I'm starting to wake up, and it's morning, or I think it's morning. I look at my clock, and it does say that it's around eleven. So, yeah, it's morning, not that I hate it, but everyone likes to sleep, as far as I know. Then, I notice something on my right shoulder and I look to my side. I see Sally sleeping, her body pressed into me, with her head on my shoulder, her arm and leg draped over me. I see that my arm is wrapped around her shoulder, and it makes me wonder how we got like this. Oh wait, yeah, I remember, we did it last night, and many times. Well, it's kind of late, and I need to eat some breakfast, so I need to get out of bed without waking her up. I was going to try that, but I see her stirring, and she starts to open her eyes. She looks at me through half-open eyes, and smiles.

"Morning," says Sally.

"Good morning," I say, and she nuzzles up to me. "I assume you had pleasant dreams."

"Why do I need dreams when you're right here?"

"That's sweet of you," I kiss her on the forehead, "but I'm getting hungry."

"Are you that hungry?"

"Unfortunately, how about you?"

"Depends on what kind." Oh, I know which one is sated.

"This one." I touch my stomach.

"I could use a bite."

"All right, I'll get it ready." Sally pulls her limbs off me, and I get up from the bed. Then, I go to my dresser, and put new clothes on. After that, I use one of my buckets to wash my hands, and go to my kitchen.

"By the way, I'm curious about something," says Sally, which I assume is from the bed.

"And what's that?" I ask.

"How did you and Emily met?"

"I met her in Brakmar, where she was some homeless Sram."

"How long ago was that?"

"Just a few days ago." There's a silence, but I don't pay it too much attention.

"And she's traveling with you now?"

"She's not exactly traveling with me, she's just following me around." I hear her walking to my bucket.

"Why?"

"I don't know, I've told her to leave, but she doesn't listen."

"She probably likes you."

"Well, I did cleaned and fed her, but that was to get her to leave." After I say that, I hear one of my chairs moving, so I assume she's taking a seat.

"I'm sure you could chase her away." I wanted to say that yes, I could, but I don't say it. I just continue on cooking breakfast, and it makes me notice that I'm cooking for three. I think she noticed something about my silence because she doesn't say anything else for a moment. "Do you want her to accompany you now?" What an interesting question. I do have to admit that Emily proved herself reliable and skillful enough to handle dangerous situations. I don't want to say it out loud, but I do like her company. I'm pretty much done with breakfast, and put it on the table.

"Hey, Sally," I say.

"Yes?" she asks.

"I have a favor to ask of you." I tell her what it is, and she agrees to help me with it. With that done, I leave the bag to check on Emily.

I come out of my bag, and see that Emily is still asleep, which I guess is because of the bamboo milk. Oh man, she's going to wake up with a hangover, but she didn't drink much, so it might be a small one. I walk up next to her bed, and start to shake her.

"Hey, Emily, wake up," I say. She groans, and I think is out of annoyance. "Come on, wake up, it's almost midday."

"Five more minutes," she says, and I have to admit, it's such a classic line.

"I have breakfast ready." She sits up, yawns, and stretches. Then, she gets up, and goes into my bag. I would have stop her, but Sally was already dressed. I follow behind her, and enter into my bag.

Once inside my bag, Sally starts to eat, and Emily quickly took a seat. She was about to eat, but there was no way I was going to let her eat without washing her hands.

"Stop it right there, Emily," I say.

"Why?" she asks.

"Go wash you hands first." I point to a bucket with water.

"Okay." She gets up, and goes to my bucket, while I take a seat on the table.

"So, how long are you staying?" asks Sally, and it's a question that I kind of fear.

"I'm planning to leave soon," I say.

"How soon?"

"After I get enough supplies to reach the next town." Oh my goddess, here it comes.

"Sounds easy, we can give you as much as you need." Okay, that's not the response I expected.

"Really?"

"Yeah, we got a lot of food back, we can spare a lot for our heroes."

"No, I mean, really? You don't mind with, you know, me? Leaving?" After I ask that, she thinks for a moment, and then, she giggles for a moment.

"You think I was going to get mad at you for leaving, after having fun with me last night?"

"Since you put it like that, yes." Emily comes back to the table, takes a seat, and starts to eat.

"Zoe, you're not the first traveler to pass through here." Okay, that says a lot.

"Was I the most fun?"

"You certainly were." Awesome! Bragging rights go to me!

After breakfast, we leave my bag, leave the tavern, and go to the storehouse. When we get inside, I could see that Sally wasn't kidding. I knew there was a lot of food in the hideout, but this is enough to last the whole town for months. Of course, I only get enough to travel to the next town, or city, whatever comes first. After that, I tell Emily to wait near a tree, while I go into a shop with Sally. The place is full of many items, and as I was told, it's run by an Enutrof. I was also told that it would be expensive to get what I wanted, but after saving money on food, I'm sure I can get it. I walk to the counter, where the Enutrof was.

"Excuse me, I'm looking for a certain item," I say.

"Ah, you must be the town's hero, whatever the item is, I'll make sure to have it, for a price," says the Enutrof.

"Of course." I tell him what I need, and he smiles, which I'm sure it's because of how expensive is going to be for me.

"I do have one." He leaves to the back of his store, and comes back a few moments later with the item I need in hand. "Here it is, that would be three thousand kamas," when he says that, I hear Sally clear her throat, and gives him a reprimanding look, "but I'm willing to make a special discount for our hero. I'll give it for two thousand and five hundred kamas."

"One thousand," says Sally.

"Sally, you're killing me here, two thousand and three hundred."

"One thousand and two hundred.

"Two thousand."

"One thousand and five hundred." The Enutrof seems to think about it, and comes to a decision.

"Deal." I give him the kamas, take the item, and leave the store.

Once outside, I see Emily still waiting in place, and playing with one of her knives. We walk up to her, and when we reach her, she puts her knife away. I know she noticed the item in my hand, I saw her eyes look at it. I present the item to her, she takes it, looks at it for a moment, and shakes it for a moment.

"What's in it?" asks Emily.

"Your home," I say, and she looks confused.

"I don't understand." Okay, whether she means it or not, she wants me to make it official. Fine, I'll do that, I put a hand on her shoulder, and start saying.

"Emily, I know I've told you to leave before, and trust me, I wanted you gone." She looks a little hurt by those words, but I wasn't done. "However, after this little adventure of ours, I realized how reliable, and loyal you are." I think she starts to realize where I'm going because she starts to smile, and I can't help it, but to smile as well. "So, what do you say? Do you want to travel with me?" Oh goddess, I think I said too much because I see some tears in her eyes.

"Yes!" she says, and after that, she keeps saying it over, and over. Then, she moves her haven bag around, I guess she's really happy to have her own. "Can I go in?"

"It's yours now, you don't need my permission."

"You're right!" She puts it on the ground, and goes inside.

"I knew she would love it," says Sally.

"I think she loved more the idea of traveling with me," I say, and Emily comes out of her bag.

"It has everything, even it's own kitchen!" says Emily with a big smile.

"And you're not going to use it, until you learn how to cook." The last thing I need is to have her haven bag burn, especially after all the money I spent on it.

"Would you teach me?"

"I'm no master, but I can teach you the basics." She cheers after hearing that.

"All right, you two better hurry up before it gets too late," says Sally.

"You're right," I say, and look at Emily. "Let's go."

"Right behind you," says Emily, and we walk to the edge of town.

When we get there, I turn towards Sally, and start to say my goodbyes.

"Thanks for everything, Sally," I say.

"Thank you for the hospitality," says Emily.

"No, no, thank you for getting rid of those Grambos, and for getting our food back," says Sally.

"It's the least we could do," I say. Then, Sally walks up to me, and gives me a kiss on the cheek.

"Pay me a visit the next time you pass through here," says Sally with a smile. I smile back, and give her a kiss on her forehead.

"I will." Then, Sally turns to Emily.

"And you're also welcome to visit any time that you like."

"Thank you," says Emily. With that done, Emily and I turn around, and leave to our next destination.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

A new day in the open road, not just for me, but for my new companion, Emily. We've been traveling for a few days now, and in the meantime, I've been teaching her how to cook. Truth be told, she's a quick learner, when it comes to cooking, which most likely stem from her love of food. Also, I'm pretty sure she's much better than me because she can cook the same thing as me, but she can make it better. Therefore, I've decided to let her cook our meals, as long as I'm nearby just in case there's some fire. If this continues without incident, I'll let her cook all on her own. Anyways, we continue on our travel, walking on the road, surrounded by open fields, the clear sky, a tree here and there, and we see some animals around. Fortunately, none of them is dangerous, it's mostly some gobball grazing around.

"You know, I still can't believe I'm allowed to travel with you," says Emily all of the sudden.

"I don't see why not, I saw you in action, and I can see that you're capable of handling yourself," I say, and she stays quiet for a moment, before she says.

"You didn't like the idea of being alone again." Okay, she's very perceptive, no wonder she can find traps without problem. Either way, I won't answer that, for the love of my goddess, I will not answer that. I can tell what will happen if I do. However, she's determined to hear my answer, and she keeps staring at me, I can just feel it. Unfortunately, I can't handle it for too long, so I stop, and turn towards her.

"You really want to hear it?" I ask, and she answers with a lot of nods. "If I must, then yes, as annoying as you can get, I do enjoy some conversation, from time to time." Oh my goddess, she just gives me a big smile, which is pretty much what I feared.

"I knew it," she says.

"Don't push your luck."

"Okay," she says with a salute, and I can't help but find it funny. As old as she is, I see that she can be so childish. For that, I smile, ruffle her hair, and we continue on our way.

It takes us a week to reach the port, and just as one expects, there are sailors. Unfortunately, we're kind of close to Brakmar, so pirates are also present, but tend to keep to themselves. I don't see why they would do that, there's practically no guards around here, so I assume that everyone here is either armed, or knows how to defend themselves.

"Come on, let's look for a boat," I say, and we head to the docks. Along the way, we're approached by a group of pirates, the last thing I wanted to happen. What I do find strange, is the people around the area, simply leave. I mean, this is looking very similar to something else, which lets me know that trouble is coming, but I would have liked something new.

"You two, our captain wants to see you," says an Iop pirate, who's practically twice my size.

"And if I refuse?" I ask.

"We drag you to him."

"Okay, just give us a moment to think," I say, and then, I point behind him. "Look over there, a very hot Eniripsa wants to kiss you!"

"Really?!" He looks away, and I take the opportunity to punch him in the gut with a Blood Rush, which sends him flying a few feet away. Seriously, I know they're warriors, or something like that, but it wouldn't hurt to give them a bigger brain. After that, I hear some clink around us, and when I look, I see some pirates rubbing their hands. The only thing I can think of, is that Emily hit their weapons with her knives.

"Did I miss something?" I ask.

"Not much," says Emily, while she spins a knife. Then, I hear footsteps, and see the rest of the pirates rush towards us with blades in hand. I look at Emily, she gives me a nod, and I rush towards one group, while she heads to the other one. One of the pirates tries to attack me with his blade, but I move to the side and dodge it. Another one tries to split my head open, I block it with my arm, and push it to the side. Then, the third one prepares to swing his sword, but I kick him in the head with a Rocky Foot, and knocks him out. The other pirate rush towards me, and swings down his sword. I block his sword, parry it to the side, grab his arm, hit him in the ribs twice, before I jump slightly, and come down with a Blood Rush to his face. The last one jumped into the air, I don't know why, but I don't complain. I hit him with a Rejectattoo, he lets go of his sword, I grab him with a tattoo, pull him towards me, and kick him away with another Rocky Foot. I send him flying to a wall, which he hits, and falls to the ground. With those guys out of the fight, I try to turn towards Emily, but I quickly notice a giant fist right on time to block it with my arm. However, it was so strong, that it sends me flying back, I roll a little bit, land on all fours, and quickly stand up. I see that the Iop was up, and itching for a fight, which is fine by me. I was about to run towards him, but I start to hear clapping from my right, so I look towards the source. I see an old Osamoda, his head full of gray hair, the usual blue skin, and cold blue eyes. He was wearing a tricorn hat, a waistcoat, a pair of breeches, boots, a linen shirt, and an eye patch on the right eye. To make it more obvious of him being a pirate, he has a crobak on his shoulder.

"Well done, ladies, I'm quite impressed with your skills," says the Osamoda.

"You must be their captain," I say.

"Indeed I am, and if you would be so kind, I would like a word with the two of you."

"And if we say no?" He gives me this creepy smile, raises a hand up, and snaps his fingers. I hear footsteps all around me, not only from all my sides, but also from the roofs. I hear Emily appearing close to me, and walks up to my side, while looking around.

"Zoe?" says Emily, but I'm just as surprised as her. They even brought a cannon, and have it pointed right at us. I look back to their captain, the crobak caws at me, and he signals to a door nearby.

"Shall we?" asks the Osamoda. I keep staring at him for a moment, look at Emily, who's a little scared, and I sigh. I don't see a way out of this, so I turn towards him, and give my answer.

"Lead the way," I say. He turns towards the door, walks into the building, and we follow behind him.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Emily and I enter the building, which turned out to be a tavern, and it was full of pirates. I see different kinds of people among the pirates, from Cras to Iops, and I think I saw a trool among them. However, I did wonder if it was a man or a woman, and if it's a woman, then that would be a scary thought. When we walk between the pirates, I notice them giving us glares, showing us that we aren't welcome here, but it's not like we wanted to be here.

"Where's the bartender?" asks Emily, which was a very good question. I look towards the counter, but I don't see him there.

"He was given the day off," answers the Osamoda.

"Let me guess, you drove him away," I say.

"It's all the same to me." Then yes, he kicked him out. We go upstairs, while the pirates continue with their drinks.

We enter into a room, decorated with swords and pistols on the walls, a throne at the end of the room, piles and bags of kamas on another side of the room. As I expected from a pirate captain, there are two more pirates in here, which I expect them to be his bodyguards, or at least his second and third-in command.

"What's the meaning of this?" says Emily, which gets my attention. I look at her, and see her with a glare on her face, and pointing at something. I look towards the direction she's pointing, and see an Ecaflip, who has a collar around her neck, and handcuffs. I have to admit, despite the fact that she's a little dirty, she's a charming one. She has shoulder-length, flowing blond hair, bright amber eyes, and brown fur, which is unfortunate that it looks dirty. However, once clean, I could tell that it would have a radiant look. Her clothing, which was a blouse, a knee-length skirt, a bandana on her head, and a pair of sandals, were also dirty. She also seems to have an earring, I don't know why the pirates didn't take it, but I guess it probably didn't have much value to them.

"Oh, this one?" asks the Osamoda, while pointing at the Ecaflip.

"Yes, her, why is she locked in there?" I do wonder the same thing.

"Well, little Sram, to make the long story short, she entered into my tavern a few days ago, played some card games, and ended up in debt with me." Oh, great, an Ecaflip who can't stop gambling. I mean, I don't have anything against them, I just think that they should learn when to stop, so they don't end in situations like this one.

"Let her out."

"I'm sorry, but I don't think you understand your situation," says the Osamoda in a threatening tone. I can see that Emily was ready to start a fight, so I do what is necessary. I put a hand on her shoulder, which seems to calm her down, and she looks at me.

"That's enough, Emily, let's hear what he has to say," I say.

"We can't leave her like that," she says.

"Yes we can." After I say that, she looks perplexed.

"What?"

"I said that we can."

"I know what you said, I just don't understand what you mean."

"Exactly what I said, we can leave her like that." She seems taken back, and takes a step away from me.

"How can you just leave her, in a cage?"

"Simple." I turn towards the door, walk out of the door, wait a few seconds, and come back in. "See? Just like that." She starts to look at the ground, as if trying to find something, and after a few moments, she looks at me.

"Is it because you don't get anything from it? I'm sure she'll do you a favor if you help her."

"She won't do any favors to me because I won't help her."

"Why are you being like this?"

"Didn't you hear him? She got herself into this mess, why would I help someone like that?"

"But, you helped that town."

"Yes, I did, but they didn't ask the Grambos to steal their food, she bet her freedom in a game of cards. She's going to take responsibility for her actions, and that's final." I turn away from her, and look at the Osamoda. "So, what do you want to talk about?"

"I have need of someone with your skills," says the Osamoda.

"For what exactly?"

"You see, there's a dungeon west of here, close to the beach, and I need the two of you to retrieve the treasure that I seek."

"You have a lot of pirates, why do you need us?"

"Well, there are a lot of traps, and dangerous creatures in there."

"Okay, we'll go in, grab it, give it to you, and you'll give us a boat, right?"

"I'll give you a boat, but there's one more thing I didn't mention."

"And what's that?"

"There's a labyrinth inside."

"Well, I'm not that good at them." I'm being honest, last time I got into one, I got lost for a week, and only found the exit, not the treasure.

"Which is fortunate that we have this Ecaflip."

"The one with such a bad luck that she got herself enslaved?"

"Her god might have been in a sadistic mood, but trust me, he changed his mind." He snaps his fingers, and one of the pirates brings a platter with three cups turned upside down. The pirate puts it in front of the Ecaflip, and they give her some cards. "Now, which one has the kama?" The Ecaflip reluctantly grabbed her cards, shuffles them, grabs three, and puts them in front of the cups. Then, she seems to concentrate, and after a few moments, she picks the card to her left, and turns it around. I don't know what was in the card, but she points at the cup on the left, the pirate lifts it up, and it reveals a kama.

"That was pure luck," I say.

"Very good luck, which you will need if you want to pass through the labyrinth," says the Osamoda.

"You want me to take her? What if she tries to escape?"

"Well, let me put it this way. If you don't bring me that treasure, I won't give you a boat." I see where it's going.

"Fine, I'll get that treasure." The Osamoda snaps his fingers, a pirate opens the cage, takes the collar off, pulls the Ecaflip out, and push her towards us. Now that I take a better look, she has a nice chest. Then, I notice that they forgot something. "I won't need the handcuffs."

"You're sure?"

"Yes, I have my tattoos if she tries to escape."

"Very well." Her handcuffs are removed, and she rubs her wrists. Then, she's given her cards, which she snatch them back, and holds them in her hands.

"All right, let's go, you two." I look at Emily, only to find that she's sulking. She looks at me for a moment, before she goes to the door, throws the door open, and leaves the room.

"Wish I could see this," says the Osamoda with a smile. I don't say anything to him, I look at the Ecaflip, and nod towards the door. Unfortunately, she doesn't move, and keeps staring at me.

"Come on." I put a hand on her shoulder, and press lightly on it. She looks at my hand, looks at me, without showing any emotion, and nods at me. I let go of her, we walk out of the room, walk out of the tavern, meet up with Emily outside, and we head to the dungeon.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

We've been walking close to the beach for a while, and haven't seen anything so far. The Ecaflip has been very cooperative because she hasn't tried to run away for a while, which is a little surprising. Of course, it might be because I'm right behind her. However, there's a certain someone with us that isn't making this any more easy. Of course, I'm talking about Emily because she hasn't stopped sulking since we left the tavern. So far, she's been staying behind us, and I've been ignoring her because I know that she will get over it, she can't stay mad at me forever. At the very least, she hasn't said anything.

"I thought you were better than this," says Emily, which just makes it worse.

"I already explained this to you, I'm not a hero, and it's not my fault that she got herself into this," I argue, and I turn around while I put a hand on the Ecaflip's shoulder. "Now, I need to use the toilet, make sure she doesn't escape, got it?" She doesn't say anything, and keeps staring at me with a frown on her face. "Emily."

"I got it." She moves next to the Ecaflip, and looks away from me. I don't say anything else to her, I drop my bag to the floor, and go inside.

Finally, a little me time, this is one of those times that I just love being alone, which is unfortunate that it's only for a few moments. I go to my booth, go in, close the door, I don't know why since I'm the only one in my bag, sit on the toilet, and start doing my business. I make sure to do it as fast as I can. With the condition that Emily is in, and by that I mean the fact that she's pissed off with me, she might let the Ecaflip escape. When I'm done, I clean up, get out of the booth, close it, and run to the exit.

I come out of my bag, ready to start looking for the Ecaflip, but to my tremendous surprise, she's standing next to Emily, who doesn't seem angry anymore. That's actually even more surprising than the fact that the Ecaflip is still here. I don't know what's going on, so I start looking around for clues. I touch the Ecaflip, and she's solid, so she isn't some kind of illusion. Then, I look behind Emily, and find nothing, which makes this even more suspicious. I look around, to my left, right, even up, and down, but I don't see anything suspicious.

"What are you doing?" asks Emily, who's looking at me like I've gone mad.

"What happened while I was in my bag?" I ask back.

"Nothing, we were just waiting out here."

"Just waiting out here."

"Yeah." I look at her in the eye, and keep staring at her, but nothing happens. Then, I hear a growl, which is a very familiar one, since it sounds like the one Emily did when she broke into my bag.

"You're that hungry already?"

"It wasn't me." I hear the noise again, and I look towards the source, which turned out to be the Ecaflip. Honestly, I can't really blame her, she might have been locked in that cage without much food. I really don't want to waste time, and I show it by smacking my face, but if it needs to be done, then it must be done. I groan in annoyance, put my hand down, and point to my bag.

"Get in the bag, both of you." Emily grabs the Ecaflip by the hand, and they do as I say. When they get inside, I follow right behind them.

Once in my bag, I walk up to them, I look at Emily, and point her to my kitchen.

"You, go and start cooking," I say.

"Okay," she says, salutes me, and walks away. Then, I look at the Ecaflip, and look at her clothes.

"As for you, Ms. Lucky, you're going to take a bath, while I clean those stinking clothes." I grab her by the wrist, and pull her towards my buckets. I leave her there, grab all that I need, like a towel, bathing supplies, and go back to her. I get everything ready, put a hand forward, and look away. I think she asks herself what was going on because it takes a while to feel her clothes on my hand. I just take them away, get to a bucket, and start cleaning her dirty clothes. I star to smell food, and I won't say it out loud, but it does smell pretty good.

I'm almost done with the clothes, all I need to do is to dry them, which it will be easy with my Blood Rush spell. I look back at the Ecaflip, and I can see that she's wrapped on the towel. When I'm done with the clothes, I grab my stool, walk next to her, put the stool next to her, and put her clothes on it. With that done, I leave her there, go to my table, and take a seat. I can see that Emily is almost done with the food, and I can't wait to see what she did with it. After a few moments, I see the Ecaflip sit at the other side of my table, in front of me. When I look at her, she gives me a smile, which is the first one since Emily and I went to that tavern. I quickly look away because I don't want her to get any wrong ideas. Once we're done with this, I'm going to send her back to the Osamoda, and that will probably be the last time I'll see her.

"Amber," says a mysterious voice. It came so suddenly, that I started looking around. Then, I look at the Ecaflip, who seems to be amused.

"What?" I ask in confusion.

"My name it's Amber," she extends a hand to me, "nice to meet you." I would have just ignored her, but since I do have manners, I grab her hand, and shake it.

"Zoe." I let go of her hand, and look away again.

"And I'm Emily, nice to meet you," says Emily as she comes to the table with the food in hand.

"Nice to meet you," says Amber with a smile. After that, Emily puts the food on the table, and we start to eat in silence, until she decided to break it.

"So, what brought you to that port?"

"I was following the guidance of Ecaflip."

"How did he guide you to your capture?" I ask, and she puts her cards on the table.

"Through the Tarot cards."

"And he told you, through your cards, to bet your freedom?"

"Honestly, he told me that I would win the much needed kamas, but it turned out to be a lie."

"No offense, but your god can be a such an ass."

"I won't deny that he can be difficult to deal with, but I believe that he did it with a purpose in mind."

"To laugh at your misfortune?"

"To bring us together."

"For what exactly?" She grabs her cards, shuffles them, puts them down, picks a card, looks at it, and turns it towards me. As far as I can see, it has the picture of a Bow Wow.

"To prevent this."

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know what it is, I only know that it's something bad."

"Great, your god is probably playing with you, again." I just go back to my food, and don't say anything else.

"By the way, how old are you?" asks Emily.

"I'm at the young age of twenty," says Amber, which is bad for me.

"Oh my god, we're both younger than Zoe!" There it is.

"Yes, you are, and I'm the old lady who's going to spank you if you keep it up," I say.

"Didn't know you were into that," says Amber, and at first, I didn't know where she was going, but after I saw her wink at me, I completely understood what she meant.

"Really? You say something like that to someone you just met?"

"What? What did she say?" asks Emily.

"You're too young to know it."

"I'm eighteen."

"And you're still too young to know it. Now eat your food, we have stuff to do." I focus on my food, and pull myself out of the conversation.

After we're done, we put the dishes away, come out of my bag, and continue on our way to find that dungeon. Hopefully, we'll find it quickly, get the treasure, give it to the pirate, get the boat, and I'll say goodbye to all of them, including Amber.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

After looking for an hour, we finally find the entrance to the dungeon, which was easy to see. It was pretty much a cave in a cliff, and I don't see any kind of door, or some guardian. We go into the cave, and it is lucky of us that there's still some daylight, or we would be kind of blind. When we reach the end, two torches lit up, and they were located on both sides of a statue that resembled a mermaid.

"What is that?" asks Emily.

"That's a mermaid, they were a majestic race, but they are believed to have gone extinct because of the Ogrest's Chaos," I answer. Then, I see something that I could not believe, the eyes of the statue start to move, and it looks at us.

"I am the guardian of this temple, and I welcome you, adventurers," says the statue.

"Uh, thank you?" says Emily.

"If you wish it, you are allowed to enter the dungeon."

"Wait, really? Just like that?" I ask because I cannot believe that it would be that easy.

"I'm not the one who will judge your worthiness, it will be the dungeon itself. If you survive it's trials, then you will be deem worthy of it's prize."

"Any idea of what it is?"

"You will know, when you reach it." Didn't expect cryptic words, but it doesn't change the fact that we have to get the treasure.

"All right, let us in, please."

"I wish you good luck, adventurers." Then, a magical glyph lights up under our feet, and we are teleported away.

We appear inside a tunnel of some kind, and the light from the glyph starts to go out. Again, we are lucky that the walls have some kind of crystal that's illuminating the tunnel. So far, there's only one way, and that's going forward. We walk for a while, before we come to an intersection, with paths going forward, left, and right. Emily and I turn to our Ecaflip companion.

"Okay, the pirate said that we would need you to navigate the labyrinth, which begs the question as to how," I say. Amber doesn't say anything, she simply takes a few steps forward, shuffles her cards, takes three of them, and looks at them.

"This way," says Amber and points to the left.

"I'll go first," says Emily, and goes to the left, while looking around. Then, she kneels down, and starts to inspect the ground. She looks at the tiles, the walls to the side, and to the ceiling. "Get in line behind me, and follow my steps." Amber and I do as Emily said. We start to walk a certain path, and as far as I can see, there's nothing strange about the floor.

"Not that I doubt your skills, but what exactly is wrong with the floor?" Emily stops in the spot, kneels down, closes a fist, and hits the floor to the left of her. After doing that, a tile simply falls down to who knows where.

"Most of it is fake, and judging by the lack of sound, it's a very deep fall." She gets up from the ground, resumes her walk, and we follow behind her. It doesn't take long for Emily to stop, look around, and turns towards us. "This seems to be the end of it."

"That's why you're the expert in traps," I say.

"I was well trained." So she's the humble type, that's good.

We continue through the tunnels, Amber picking the way, and Emily detecting the traps. However, there's something that's bothering me about the dungeon, and it's not about the bones on the floor.

"Not that I'm complaining, but where are the monsters?" I ask.

"The pirate did say that there were enemies in here, but I haven't seen anything," says Emily.

"He probably lied to us." Something must be against me because a spear pasts flying right in front of my face. I look to my left, and find the living skeleton of a spear shark, who launched itself towards me, ready to bite my head off. I quickly duck, and the shark goes flying over me, but then, I remember that Amber was right behind me. I turn around, and see Amber rolling out of the way. The shark lands, and turns around, only to receive a card on it's face, which explodes. Well, with that one out, I look back to my left, and another shark charges at me with it's spear. It tries to stab me with it, but I move to the side. Then, he spins, and swings it's weapon, but I block it with one hardened arm, which ends up breaking the spear. It looks at it's weapon for a moment, and I take it to punch it in it's big face with a Blood Rush, which breaks it. However, I notice a sharkie falling from it's head, and it bites my arm, which was fortunate of me that I hardened it. I can deal with it, no problem, until I feel another pair of jaws biting my right leg, and another biting my left shoulder.

"Zoe!" I hear Emily yell, I look at her, and she tries to come to my aid, but she's having some problems of her own. I hear more explosions to my right, and see another shark explode in pieces. Well, it's not that bad for me, but the little sharkies certainly forgot not to bite more than they can chew. I concentrate through the pain for a moment, and use another spell I haven't used in a while, which is Burning Blood. I literally explode, and blow the sharkies into pieces, but I still don't know why my clothes never get burn. Anyways, I check on my companions, and I see Emily cutting one shark in half with her scythe, while Amber uses her cards to blow another one into pieces. We look around, and don't see anymore sharks' skeletons.

"Well, that was something," I say.

"It was, but more importantly, are you okay?" asks Amber.

"I'm fine, kind of pissed off because those little sharks ruined my clothes." Seriously, I liked this vest.

"It seems clear of enemies, we should keep moving before more of those things get here," says Emily.

"Then let's move." We continue on our way through the dungeon, and I hope that we find the place soon enough.

Along the way, we continue to follow Amber's directions, and Emily continued to help us through the traps. We did find more of those living skeletons, but we were prepared for them, and easily dispatched them without difficulty. I really don't know how much time has passed, we just keep going, which is one of the reasons that I hate labyrinths. One simply doesn't know when is it going to end, but is a good thing that we have enough supplies to last us a few more days. Then, we finally reach a really big room, which was shaped like a dome. There's a path leading to a platform that is located in the center of the room, and it was surrounded by water. As far as I can see, there's some kind of crystal ball on top of a small pedestal in the middle of the platform.

"Is this it?" asks Emily.

"In my experiences, it is, but stay on your guard," I say.

"Let's grab it while luck is in our favor," says Amber. We walk through the path, and once we get to the platform, the path behind us starts to sink into the water.

"Is this a trap?" asks Emily.

"I don't think so," I say, and right after that, the pedestal starts to get lowered into the platform. Once it's completely inside, the small hole it went through closes, and we're left alone in the room. We quickly get back-to-back, looking all over the room, searching for any kind of danger, which quickly appears in the form of a group of shark skeletons. There are ones with spears, I think I see some hammerhead ones, and the little ones. I was feeling confident, if this is all we're going to deal with, this is going to be easy. Then, I hear something bigger landing to my right, and I look towards it. I was expecting something different, like a giant monster, with tentacles, since we're in some kind of dungeon with an underwater theme, but no. Instead, it's just another shark's skeleton, but this one is bigger, and it's wearing armor on it's head, shoulders, and chest. It's spear is also different than the other ones, with some seashells decorating it, and I think I see a skull hanging on it.

"The boss?" asks Emily.

"The boss," I answer.

"How original," says Amber with sarcasm, and I won't say it to her face, but I completely agree with her.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

The big shark roars at us, and the other sharks start to approach us.

"Well, how about I deal with it, while you guys deal with the grunts?" I ask.

"Think you can handle it?" asks Amber.

"One never knows until they try." I run towards the boss, and two sharks try to get in my way, but I use my Light Speed spell. I dash with tremendous speed, punch them in the face, and appear in front of the boss. I step forward, and it immediately tries to stab me, but I move out of the way. I move closer, jump into the air, and attack with a Blood Rush to it's face. The boss spins it's spear, and parries my punch, but I keep attacking with a Rocky Foot. Unfortunately for me, the boss also parries my kick, hits my body so hard, that I bounce off the floor, and it finish by stabbing me in the stomach. I harden my body, but the blow still hurts me, and sends me flying. I bounce again, roll on the ground, and stop on all four.

"Need help?" asks Amber while throwing her cards.

"Don't worry about me, I can take more than that," I answer, and start rushing towards the boss. It attacks me with another stab, but I parry it with my arm, get closer, and attack the boss with a Blood Rush to the body. The boss tries to move away, but I keep close to it, and I can see that it has difficulty fighting me with that spear. At one point, I grab it with one hand, and keep punching the boss in the body. Then, it tries to shove me away with the spear, but I grab it with both hands. The boss starts to push me, and I try to stand my ground, but considering the difference in size, that's not going to do much for me. I'm pushed back, but I don't let go of that damn spear. Then, the boss pulls the spear towards it, and tries to bite my head off. I duck, push the spear up, and give the boss a headbutt in the chin, which makes it bite it's own weapon. After I move away, the boss looks at the two pieces of what used to be it's weapon, looks at me, glares at me, and throws the useless spear away. I think it glared at me, I mean, it doesn't have eyes, so it's more of a feeling. The boss roars at me again, I guess because its angry about the spear, and starts to run towards me. When it gets in range, it raises an arm, or flipper, whatever it is, and brings it down on me. I move out of the way, and the boss hits the ground, while I jump, and hit the shark in the face with a Blood Rush. Unfortunately, it doesn't stop the boss from swinging at me, hits me with it's forearm, and sends me flying towards the water. I quickly recover in time to grab the boss with my tattoos, and pull myself towards it. The boss doesn't mind, pulls my tattoos, and readies it's jaws to bite me in half. Right before that happens, I stop it's jaws from closing using all of my limbs. The boss keeps trying in closing it's jaws, and I feel it's arms trying to push me inside it's mouth. I guess no one taught it the saying about chewing, but I'm more than happy to teach it. I concentrate, use my Burning Blood spell, and explode in it's jaws. The boss's jaws loosen up, I get out of it's mouth, and the boss starts to shake it's head. I take the opportunity to jump into the air, and use a Rocky Foot to kick it's lower jaw, which sends it flying away. Then, I spin in the air, and use another Rocky Foot to land a back kick to the boss's face. I push it away, land safely on the ground, and start running towards the boss. I jump into the air, and try to punch it in the face, but the boss blocks my attack. Then, it punch me in the stomach, hits me on the back with a hammer fist, makes me bounce off the ground, and sends me flying with another swing of it's arm. I might be the first Sacrier who learned how to fly, since this is the second time that happens to me. I roll on the floor for a few moments, before I recover, and stand up. I see a sharkie going towards Emily, and I grab it with a tattoo. She notice what I did, and looks at me.

"May I?" I ask.

"Be my guest," says Emily, and I pull the sharkie towards me. Then, I throw the thing towards the boss, who simply gives it a headbutt and smash the sharkie into pieces. I grab the boss with both of my tattoos and pull myself towards it. Then, I put my feet in front of me, and give the boss a double kick in the chest, which sends it flying back. It's kind of funny, it must be the first shark to fly, but it's short live since it falls to the floor. It gets up from the ground, and once again, I grab the boss with a tattoo, and pull myself with a Scrier's Fist ready. When I get in range, I throw my punch, which is easily blocked, and the boss tries to punch me. I'm not going to fall for it a second time, and block it with my other arm. The boss tries to hit me again with the other arm, but I dodge it, jump in the air, and punch it in the face. It tries to swing at me, but I read it's move too easily, and dodge it. However, I wasn't expecting it to use the other arm to grab me by the neck, and throws me to the ground. Then, it jumps and tries to fall on me, but I roll out of the way, and get up as fast as possible. Once I do, I try to run towards the boss, but it gets on all four, launch itself, and hits me with it's head, which sends me flying. Okay, time to be a bit more aggressive, I recover, use my Light Speed spell, dash towards the boss, and kick it in the face. Then, I punch it in the chest, jump, and finish with an uppercut to the upper jaw. Unfortunately, it uses it long nose to hit me in the stomach, and slams me into the floor. Well, just a bit more, and I'm going to lay it on the boss, really bad. The boss tries to hit me in the face, so I roll to the side, and hit it's arm with my elbow, which breaks it in half. The boss roars, I don't know if it's from pain, and tries to bring it's other fist down on me. I roll away from it, get up, and jump at it with a punch ready for it. What I did not expect from the boss, was to grab it's own arm, and use it as a club against me. It hits me in the chin, brings it down, and hits me in the body, which makes me bounce off the ground. The boss doesn't stop there and continues to hit me over, and over, making me bounce off the floor. Then, it jumps, hits me with an elbow, and slams me into the floor. So, yeah, that kind of does it for me, and I don't mean it that way. The boss gets up from the ground, looks down on me, and I think it starts to laugh. However, I'm about to be the one laughing, and it starts with the boss raising a foot, on drops it on me. I catch it with one hand, which really surprises the boss because it stops laughing. I get on my knees, and push the foot away from me, which makes the boss fall on it's back. I get up, take off my vest, and look at the boss.

"Well then, I think it's about time we finish this, right?" I say, even though I don't know if it can understand me. Oh well, I just let the second pair of arms out, and beckon it to come at me. The boss gets up, roars at me, and comes charging with it's arm, or club at this point. It swings it at me, but I catch it with one hand, and I simply squeeze it until it breaks. The shark looks at it's weapon, looks at me, back to the weapon, back to me, and attacks with it's other arm. I simply punch it into pieces, punch it's armor into pieces, jump, and give it a double uppercut. Not only do I destroy it's skull, but I also send it's helmet flying away, and it hits a shark in the head. That gets all of the sharks' attention, just at the right moment when their leader falls to the ground in a pile of bones. I look at every single one of them.

"So, anyone else!?" I ask, and my respond was all of the skeletons falling to the ground in a pile of bones.

"I'll take that as a no," says Emily, who was more than just bruised from her fight with the sharks. She had bite marks on her right leg, on her left shoulder, and her left cheek had a cut.

"Glad this is over, and may I suggest you keep the vest off?" says Amber, who seem to have used her bandana to close a cut on her right arm, has a black eye, and holding her midsection.

"You guys look like crap," I say.

"Look who's talking," says Emily.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, for starters, your head is bleeding, there's a red spot on your shirt, which I assume is a cut on your midriff, your knuckles are bleeding, and I think one of your eyes is swelling up," says Amber. Then, we hear something moving, look towards the center of the platform, and see the pedestal rising from the floor.

"Well, let's see what we got from fighting for our lives against a bunch of dead sharks."


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

We approach the mysterious crystal ball, which rests on the pedestal and glows with a strange light. We stand around the pedestal, and I don't know if it's because of the same reason, but none of us dare to touch it.

"What do you girls think it does?" asks Amber.

"Considering this is a room with a platform surrounded by water, I say it has something to do with water," I say.

"Like what?" asks Emily.

"I don't know, maybe call some giant monster from the sea, or control the sea itself."

"Well then, you're welcome to try it," says Amber.

"You want me to touch this thing with my bare hands, what if this is a trap?"

"I think you already beat the one thing protecting the treasure."

"True." I have to think of something fast.

"And you are the oldest among us." What?

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You certainly won't force a young woman to risk herself, are you?" That does it.

"Okay, you know what? I'll grab it, but if I die, I'll hunt you for the rest of your life." I put my hands close to the crystal ball, take a few moments to prepare myself mentally, and grab the mysterious treasure. So, I keep my hands on it, kind of surprised that nothing happened to me. I pick it up from the pedestal, and I thought something would happen, like another trap activating, a boulder rolling towards us, but nothing happened again.

"You didn't explode," says Emily, and I just look at her.

"You wanted me to explode?" I ask in disbelief.

"No I didn't, I just thought that you would."

"How does that make it better?"

"Do you feel any different?" asks Amber.

"Not really, and the crystal ball feels like normal glass," I say. It wasn't even that big, or heavy, I can literally carry it in one hand.

"Maybe it needs some kind of magic word."

"Like 'activate'?"

"Maybe some magic word in mermaid language," says Emily.

"She spoke the same language as us, so I don't think that's the case."

"Well, how about you give a command?"

"I can try." I look around me for a clue, and the only thing that's interesting, is the water around the platform. The crystal might have something to do with water, especially since everything about this place has to do with the sea. I look at the water around the platform, and give my command. "Rise." After I give the command, the water in front of me starts to go up. When I say stop, the water stops rising, and stays up.

"My god, the crystal ball lets you control water," says Emily.

"What else can it do?" asks Amber.

"I wish it could heal," I say because we really need it. Then, a trail of water starts coming our way, and when it reaches our feet, it starts to go up our bodies. I feel it seeping into my wounds, and it hurts for a few moments, before it goes away. When I look at my wound, I see it closing rapidly, and I feel my strength coming back to me. When it was done, the water starts to retreat out of the platform.

"This is amazing," says Amber.

"He can't have it," says Emily, which gets our attention, "if he gets his hands on it, he will conquer the sea, and with it, the world."

"You're being dramatic," I say.

"Zoe, we can't give it to him."

"Of course I won't give it to him."

"How heroic of you," says Amber.

"I mean, he's a pirate, I'm pretty sure he wasn't going to give us the ship anyways."

"Look at it any way that you want, as long as he doesn't get his hands on it," says Emily.

"All right, enough of that, we need to get out of here." After I say that, a magical glyph appears under us, and it starts to glow.

"Here we go again," says Emily before the glyph teleports us out of the room.

We appear in front of the statue, and it's looking at us with pride in her eyes.

"Congratulations, you've reached the ancient treasure of my people, the Tear of the Sea," says the Mermaid statue.

"Which lets us control water," I say.

"Correct, and now that it's in your hands, my mission is complete." Wait, this sounds familiar.

"What mission?" asks Emily.

"To guard my people's most cherished treasure, and wait for the right hero to acquire the Tear of the Sea." Yeah, I better not say anything right now.

"What happens now?"

"I will finally rest in peace." After the statue says that, she closes her eyes, and goes silent. There's no need to look into it too much, one can just feel it, she's gone, and she will most likely never speak again.

"Well, I don't know what to think," I say.

"I know, we were given something so precious to them," says Emily.

"No, I mean, I don't now if they were that naive, or they got the wrong person." Emily stares at me, I don't see it, but I feel her eyes on me.

"Yeah, why not? Now, we have to be careful, we don't know if they're waiting for us outside."

"Not necessarily," says a voice, and before any of us could react, the crystal ball is taken out of my hands. Then, a Sram appears in front of us, with a pirate outfit. If my memory serves me right, he's one of the two pirates in the room with their captain.

"What are you doing here?" asks Emily, and I have to wonder if she's serious.

"Exactly what it looks like, to take this little thing to my captain."

"So, he knew we weren't going to give it to him," I say.

"Not exactly, he didn't trust you from the beginning." Then, Emily quickly throws a knife at the pirate, but he dodged it. "Now, if you excuse me, I have to deliver this." The Sram pirate runs away, and we quickly start the chase. I try to grab him with a tattoo, but he dodged it, and continues running. We continue the chase, and we can see the end of the cavern.

"We have to stop him!" says Emily.

"What do you think we've been trying to do!?" I ask, and it's a very fair question. We reach the entrance, and the sun is a little too bright, considering we spent a long time in a tunnel. After my eyes adjust to the light, I start to wish that I was still half blind.

"Hello there, did you have fun?" asks the very familiar voice of the Osamoda captain.

"Not as much as I'm going to have kicking your ass," I answer.

"Funny, I was planning on letting you go, since I'm about to be the king of the seas, but after hearing that, I changed my mind." Now that I think about it, I might have said the wrong thing, especially since he has his whole crew waiting behind him, and that damn cannon.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

"Get rid of them," says the Osamoda captain and starts to walk away.

"With pleasure," says the big Iop I punched before, and orders his crew members to attack us. Ten of their crew start charging at us with swords in hand. I'm confident that my companions can handle themselves, so I only focus on the opponents in front of me. I hit one of them in the face with a Rejectattoo and take the pirate down. Then, another one swings his blade, but I kick it with a Rocky Foot, break it, spin around, give the pirate a Rocky Foot in the stomach, and send him flying. The third pirate coming my way swings down his sword, I attack with a Blood Rush, punch through the sword, hit the pirate in the face, and send him to the ground. I look towards my companions, and just as I expected, they deal with their enemies without taking any damage. I look back towards the rest of the pirates, and I can see that most of them are surprised.

"I mean, we just fought a bunch of Shark skeletons, and I fought a really big one. I think as big as the big Iop over there, this shouldn't be surprising," I say, and it's not because I'm being cocky, I'm just stating a fact. However, I don't think the big Iop took it well because he frowns at me.

"What are you standing around for?! Get them!" says the big Iop, and I wonder if he wants us to get tired before the three top pirates jump in. Whatever, most of the pirates come rushing towards us, and I can see that they're getting ready to use that damn cannon of theirs. I use my Light Speed spell, and dash towards their weapon, while punching any pirate that gets in my way. I quickly get to the cannon, jump over it, and punch the pirate using it with a Blood Rush. Other pirates surround me, but I stay close to the cannon, so they don't use it against us. Some pirates approach me from the front, but I jump over the cannon, putting it between us. I grab a pirate behind me, pull him towards me, and punch him in the face. I quickly look behind me, and see another one running towards me. He tries to grab me, but I grab one of his arms, throw him over, and he lands on other pirates. I move behind the cannon, and kick it as hard as I can, which sends it rolling towards a group of pirates. They catch the cannon, but I quickly run towards them, use the cannon to jump higher, and land on one of them with an elbow drop. Then, I quickly get up, and use my Burning Blood spell, making me explode in the middle of them, which knocks those around me out of the fight. I look around me, and notice most of the crew on the ground. Some of them have knives and cuts on them, indicating that Emily took care of them. I check on her, and notice that there are two of them.

"Now you can make a clone?" I ask.

"I wasn't that sure it would come out right," she says, and the clone disappears. Then, I look for our Ecaflip companion, and I found her standing among the fallen pirates. I notice that some of them had scratch marks on them.

"Just how sharp are your claws?"

"Enough to leave a mark on you," she says, and winks at me. I understand what she's implying, so I end it there. I look behind me, and there's only the three top pirates of the crew, which involve the Sram, a Cra, and the Iop.

"That leaves the three of you, ready to surrender?" I ask.

"You seem to be underestimating us," says the Sram, who was wearing the typical suit and mask, but he was also wearing boots, those weird trousers, which had a black belt with a gold buckle, and an opened vest.

"Our actions proved what we're capable of," says Emily.

"Ha! They're a bunch of cabin boys compared to us," says the Cra, who was wearing an earring on his right ear, a bandana on his head, a shirt under a jacket, trousers kept in place using a belt with a gold buckle, and boots.

"And you're about to join them on the ground," says Amber as she flips a card between her fingers.

"Wait, you still had more?" I ask.

"I have enough for these scum."

"I'll make those your last words," says the big Iop, who was wearing a tank top with black and white stripes, trousers, boots, and an eye patch.

"If I remember correctly, the Sacrier over there put you on the ground with a single punch," says the Sram pirate.

"She distracted me!"

"With the oldest trick in the book."

"I know, right? I still can't believe he fell for it," I say.

"Now that I think about it, I can't believe you let that chance to get away," says Emily.

"What do you mean? I land a good one on him."

"And he's right in front of us."

"Okay, what would you have done?"

"Kick him where it hurts the most." Crap, that's a good one.

"Aren't we supposed to be fighting right now?" asks Amber.

"Oh, right," I say, and use my Light Speed spell to launch myself towards the big Iop. I punch him, but he reacted fast enough to block my attack with his arms. He shoves me away and throws a punch, which sends a fireball. I move to the side, dodge the attack, and grab the Iop with one of my tattoos. I pull myself towards him, and prepare a Sacrier's Fist. When I get close enough, I throw the punch, and he responds by throwing a punch of his own. Our fists connect, but neither one of us is pushed back. He throws a left punch, and I move away from him to dodge it. Then, he grabs a nearby rock, pulls it out of the ground, and throws it towards me. I grab it with my tattoo, swing it around, and throw it back at him. I see him run towards me, and simply shoves the rock to the side. He raises his hands into the air, and I simply move to the side, but he hits the ground so hard that it sends shock waves around him. They send me flying to the nearest wall, and I slam into it with my back. It didn't stop there because I see the Iop running towards me again, ready to smash me with his shoulder. I spin on the wall, barely dodging the attack, and throw a spinning side-kick with a Rocky Foot. I hit him right on the stomach, which makes him back away, and I take the opportunity to hit him in the face with a Rejectattoo. Unfortunately, right after I land that hit, he hits me in the stomach with one of those fire punches. I don't let it stop me and use my Light Speed spell to dash towards him. I punch him in the face, but he grabs me in a bear hug, and starts squeezing. I'm pretty sure he's trying to break my back, but I don't let him, and explode using my Burning Blood spell. He lets go of me, and I give him a Blood Rush uppercut on the chin. However, I take a punch to my face, a punch to my chin, which sends me into the air. I recover, grab his shoulders, pull myself towards him, and give him a double kick in the face. I jump away, grab his shoulder from behind with my tattoos, pull myself towards him, wrap my legs around his neck, wrap my arms around his head, and prepare to use my Burning Blood spell. Then, I see the big Iop preparing something, but I continue with my own spell. When I use it, the Iop also seems to explode somehow, and negates the power of my spell. After that, I feel a punch to my face, he grabs my head, and slams me into the ground. I notice the Iop preparing to bring down his huge foot on me, but I use my tattoo to grab whatever is to my left, and pull myself away from danger. I quickly get up from the ground, and when I look at him in the eye, I start to realize something. We don't have time to waste on these fools, we have to go and stop their captain before he has time to cause any serious damage. Then, it came to me, a plan to end my fight, which is a very risky and reckless one, but if I do it right, it will end in my favor. I start by standing straight, keep looking at him in the eye, and roll my shoulders.

"Are you a true Iop?!" I yell at him. He seems confused for a moment, and stands straight.

"The truest and strongest there is!" he responds.

"Then get your ass over here, and let's end this like a true warrior! No tricks, and no spells, just our bare hands, right here, right now!" I keep looking at him, and hope that he's the kind of Iop that I think he is. He starts walking up to me, and when he reaches me, he stands in front of me.

"Ladies first." Yup, he's that kind of Iop, and he has some manners. I punch him in the face, and he takes it like a man. Then, he punches me right in the face, and we go like that for a little while. I think he started to realize that something was up.

"What's wrong? Are you ready to give up?" I ask, but I can't deny that his punches really hurt, which is good.

"You're cheating! You said no spells!" he yells in anger.

"I'm a Sacrier of my word, I've not used any spell."

"You incompetent Iop! Can't you see what you're doing?!" yells someone, I look towards the direction of the voice, and it turns out to be the Sram.

"What are you talking about?!" asks the Iop, and I have to admit that he must be pretty dumb.

"She's a Sacrier! The more damaged she is, the stronger she gets!" After hearing that, he looks at me in surprise, and it quickly changes to anger. He roars at me, and punches me in the face, but I manage to stay conscious. I see him throwing another punch, but I simply stop it with one hand because I know that I could. He's shocked to see a young woman, who's smaller than him, stopping his huge fist with one hand.

"Say, just how screwed do you think you are right now?" I ask with a smile on my face.

"Very?"

"We have a winner! Here's your reward." I punch him in the stomach, which stuns him long enough for me to take off my vest. Then, I let my other set of arms out, and use my Smasher combo. It involves me, sending him up into the air with a punch, I jump, give him a few more hits, before sending him crashing into the ground. I land on my feet, and I check on the Iop, who's completely knocked out. I check on my companions, right on time to see them defeating their enemies. Emily tricked her opponent into stepping on a trap, which explodes. Amber created some kind of smoke with one of her cards, and when it dissipated, I see her standing next to the Cra, who had claw marks on his chest.

"There goes our healing," says Emily, and I can understand what she means. I can see she has some cuts here and there, while Amber also has some cuts, but I also notice something on her arm.

"Is that a hole?" I ask.

"Yes, I guess I wasn't fast enough to dodge that one," says Amber, and I can see that she's starting to feel the pain.

"Let me help you with that," I walk up to her, and use my Sanguine Armor spell to close the wound.

"Much better, remind me of returning the favor one of these days." Then, she winks at me.

"You really don't have to."

"We don't have time for this, we have to stop their captain," says Emily.

"Right, let's get going." We start running out of the cave, and back to the port. Hopefully, he's doing what I think he's doing right now.


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

We continue running towards the port, but even from this far, we can see that the captain is standing on top of a column of water.

"What is he doing?" asks Emily.

"He's doing exactly what every villain would do in that situation," I answer.

"And what's that?"

"Let me answer it this way, if you were a villain, who just got incredible power, what would you do?" I see Emily starts to think about it for a moment.

"I would be gloating."

"And showing off, which is exactly what he's also doing with the whole, 'look at me on top of this giant column of water that I created, fear me,' kind of thing."

"We could use that to our advantage." I need to hear this because I would go with any crazy plan at this point.

"Got a plan?"

"We can try to sneak on him while he's distracted, and take that crystal ball out of his hands."

"Sounds like a good plan, but how would we get to him? He's too far, and going into the water is out of the question," says Amber, and I do agree with her points. We see her thinking about her plan, but I fear that she won't come up with anything.

"I have no idea." Just as I thought.

"Don't worry about it, we'll figure something out," I say.

"I just hope it's not too late."

"You and me both."

We finally reach the port, and I can feel the fear in the air. I can also see some people starting to grab whatever they can, and preparing to leave the place. Others are just panicking so much that they're running around the place. The pirate captain's voice can be heard in the entire port because he somehow made a face of himself on the column of water. I really don't have time to hear what he's saying because I have the full intent of shutting him up for good. I look around, trying to find something that would be useful, but when I lay eyes on a ship, I get an idea. I turn around, and look at my companions.

"Okay, girls, I have a plan that could get us up there," I say.

"Just say it then, the whole place has gone crazy, and it might get worse," says Emily while looking around. I tell them my plan to reach the captain, and I can see the doubt in their eyes, but this is the best I can come up with. Eventually, they go along with my plan, and we head to the docks. Even though there was panic in the port, it seems that all of the boats were still in their place. Seems logical, with the captain controlling the sea, no one would be allowed to leave on their ships. We quickly look for a certain ship, and when we find it, we board it. Then, we start looking for what we needed for my plan, and as far as we could see from outside, it has plenty.

"What do you think you're doing on my ship?!" yells someone from behind us. We turn around, and it turns out to be a Pandawa, wearing a white blouse, black trousers, a black belt with a gold buckle, black boots, an earring on the right ear, and a captain's hat. However, that's not what caught my attention. I've seen pirate captains with a long beard, awful teeth, sweaty clothes, and dangerous, as it was expected, but not her. She wasn't as hot as Sally, but she was attractive, like a princess, who can stab, shoot someone, or both without flinching. She had shoulder-length white hair, lively gray eyes, and the usual black and white pattern on her fur. Her chest seems pretty average, at least bigger than Emily, but the Pandawa seems confident enough to show a bit of it.

"Please calm down, and keep your voice down, we don't want to call his attention," says Emily.

"Then you better start talking, or I'm kicking the three of you out of my ship," says the Pandawa, and even though she's a few inches shorter than me, she doesn't seem to care.

"We just need to borrow one of your cannons."

"You want to shoot him? Even my best cannon won't reach him."

"Not if we're just shooting cannonballs," I say.

"And what exactly do you intend to shoot?"

"Me, and my friends." We can see that the Pandawa is surprised to hear something like that, and I can understand that.

"Let me hear the whole thing." I take the time to explain my plan to the Pandawa captain, and I don't know why, but she simply agrees with it without hesitation.

"I'm surprised you agreed in helping us with this plan," says Amber.

"If it means saving my ship from that madman, then I'm all for it," says the Pandawa captain.

"We just need to get one of the cannons up here," I say.

"Then let's get moving already." The Pandawa captain goes to the deck below us, and we follow behind her. We see her trying to pull the cannon by herself.

"Let me do it," I approach the cannon she's pulling, she moves away from it, and I start pulling it below the hatch.

"You must be in a lot of pain if you can pull it that easily."

"We had a rough day." More than rough, but I see no reason to get into much detail. When I put it below the hatch, we run up to the main deck, open it, I grab the cannon with my tattoos, and start pulling it up with everyone's help.

"Where's your crew?" asks Emily, and I do wonder the same because they could be helping us right about now.

"The whole lot of them ran away," said the Pandawa captain with disdain in her voice.

"Why didn't you?" I ask.

"I've sailed the seas in this ship for years, this is basically my pride and joy. If it's going to be sunk to the bottom of the ocean, then I'll go down with it."

"That would be such a waste." I have no idea why I said that, it just came out of nowhere.

"What do you mean?"

"Sorry, slip of the tongue." We finish pulling the cannon onto the main deck, and we set it to aim directly at the top of the column of water. We prepare the cannon, get my friends ready, I wrap my tattoos around the cannon, and put it inside. She was about to light the fuse, but she stopped before it lit.

"Before I shoot you out, I need to know something."

"We really don't have time for this."

"Then you better answer my question, and quickly. What did you mean by that?" I can't believe she wants to know that right now, and I don't think she will like to hear it.

"It's nothing serious."

"I don't like secrets, it could lead to mutiny. So tell me what you meant, or I'll shoot you." The Pandawa captain puts her hand on the cannon, ready to move it just enough to shoot the cannonball at my face.

"I don't know if it will offend you."

"Only one way to find out." She's persistent, which some would call stubborn.

"Alright, you win. What I meant was, it would be a waste for a pretty girl like you to die here." I said it fast in hopes that she wouldn't hear it right, but I think she did because of that shocked expression on her face. That just makes it more awkward than it should be, I don't even look at her in the eye.

"Light the fuse, please," I manage to say while looking away.

"No problem," says the Pandawa captain, puts the match on the fuse, and after a few seconds, the cannons shoots, which sends me flying with the cannonball.


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Well, this is what really feels like to fly, without the whole getting punched, or stabbed, and sent flying afterwards. I would have liked to enjoy the sensation of being up in the air, but I have to stop a mad pirate from destroying the port, and probably, the whole world. The cannonball does reach very far, but not enough to reach the top of the column. So, I quickly pull myself to the cannonball, stand on it, and jump from it, before it starts to drop back to the sea. I don't know how, but he somehow sensed me, and starts looking my way. I try to grab him with my tattoo, but he quickly raise a wall of water, and froze it. However, I don't let it stop me, and I use the wall to pull myself closer. I punch the wall with a Blood Rush, and break it into piece, but my success is short lived. Somehow, the ice simply flies to me, surround me, and captures me in a ball of ice.

"I'm a little surprised you got here, which means that you managed to beat my entire crew," says the Osamodas captain.

"You don't sound surprised, or worried," I say.

"Why would I need a bunch of imbeciles when I have this?" I don't know if he realizes this, but everyone can hear it because he hasn't gotten rid of that face in the water.

"That's a fair point."

"And now, I got you in my grasps."

"And now, you don't." I explode with my Burning Blood spell, breaking the ball of ice around me. I try to grab the crystal ball with my tattoo, but the Osamodas moves it out of the way, and let's my tattoo grab him. He shoots the water below him towards me, but I don't let go, and he responds by freezing it. Again, I explode and grab the rest of the ice with my other pair of arms. I crawl with my orange arms towards the captain, while I punch the ice in my way. Unfortunately, he responds quickly and creates these giant hands made of ice, and tries to squash me like a bug. I stop them using all of my limbs, but I don't think I can do anything at the moment.

"Now, what's your next move?" asks the Osamodas with a smirk on his face.

"Me? Oh no, I don't have any moves, but she might," I say, and the moment I'm done saying that, Emily jumps out of my bag, and prepares her scythe. The Osamodas responds by stabbing her with an ice spike.

"It was short-lived." I don't say anything else, I just let the next part come as a surprise. The Emily he stabbed was actually a clone, and I know that because I felt her feet on my shoulders, which she used to jump into the air. My invisible companion throws some knives from the air, but the captain decides to block them with his arm. The knives get stuck on it, and I don't know how, but the captain quickly grabs the real Emily with a water whip. Then, the whip turns into ice, locking her in place. She reveals herself, I guess because there was no point in keeping her invisibility.

"Uh, good afternoon," says Emily, but the Osamodas doesn't respond immediately.

"I'm sorry, I was planning on how to make the two of you pay for this," says the Osamodas and presents his arm, which has knives on it.

"How about we decide by flipping a coin?" I suggest.

"Good idea, if it lands on head, I crush you right now. If it lands on tails, I'll gut you with a carving knife, how about it?"

"I was thinking more on, if it lands on head we leave, and tail would still let us go."

"That's not how it works."

"We could make it work, it can't be that hard." The giant ice hands move me closer to the captain.

"And how do you propose we do that?" Then, we hear something hitting glass, and we look at the crystal ball, which had a very familiar card. "How…?"

"I mean, you sent someone with us, I don't know why you forgot about her." I look towards Amber, who was using her claws to stick to the ice that was wrapped around Emily. Then, I see Amber blow a kiss, and I don't know to who, but I hope it was towards him, as a taunt, or something of the sorts.

"You mother–" The card explodes, preventing him from saying anything else. I don't mind the explosion, I can harden my body to endure the explosion, but I don't know about the captain. I know the crystal ball was destroyed because the hands stopped pushing, which start falling, just like the giant column of water. We also start falling towards the sea, but to be more precise, it's the seafloor, and I won't lie, even I'm a little scared.

"Zoe!" I hear Emily yell. I look towards their direction, use both of my tattoos to grab them, pull them towards me, and grab them. I see below us, and at the rate that we're going, we're going to hit the ground first, before the seawater comes crashing down on us. I quickly look for something to grab on, and pull us to safety. The first thing that I see, is the mast of a ship, and the only thing that I can hope for, is that it will save us, instead of killing us.

"Hold on tight!" I yell, just in case they couldn't hear me. They do what I say without hesitation, I throw a tattoo, and grab the mast of the ship. I pull us towards it, and I try to grab, but lo and behold, my hand slips on it. I mean, I don't even know how that's possible, but I fail to get a good grip, and we continue to head towards the ground. The good thing about it, is that the fall won't be as bad as before, the bad thing about it, is that we're going to crash through a wood wall, and we'll probably hit something hard. I pull them as close to me as possible, turn around, harden my back as much as possible, and prepare myself for it. This will prevent them from taking any serious damage, but it still going to be a bit rough for them. I crash through a wall, which is not so bad, until I hit the floor, bounce off, and crash into some barrels. I don't really know if they were barrels, but it sounded like wood, so it might have been that, or crates, which doesn't really matter because it still hurts. My grip on these two loosen up, and I simply lay there, just in case I broke something.

"Oh my god, Zoe, say something, anything!" yells Emily.

"How about ouch?" I answer, and I hear a sigh.

"That will do just fine."

"Is there something broken on you?" asks Amber.

"I don't know, let me check," I say, and slowly start to sit up. I don't feel anything broken, but my whole body hurts for some reason, even the parts that shouldn't be hurt. "Well, nothing broken, but I fell like my whole body is."

"We'll help you up." Both Amber and Emily grab an arm, wrap it around their shoulders, and help me get on my feet, which I really appreciate. Although, they're also just as tired as me, just not as damaged. We come out of the building, and are greeted by a crowd waiting outside. They surround us, cheer for us, and we see the Pandawa that helped us earlier push her way through them. She gets close to us, and after looking at me for a moment, she turns around.

"Get an Eniripsa for my friends here!" yells the Pandawa, and an Eniripsa gets through the crowd. She immediately pulls out a brush, and starts healing us. After she was done, I look around, and find a lot of people with bags.

"So, what brought you back to this town?" I ask.

"We saw the column of water falling back down," says a sailor.

"We thought it was a tsunami at first," says what looked like to be a trader of sorts.

"When they came back, I told them about you guys fighting that mad man," says the Pandawa captain.

"Well, it wasn't much of a fight," I say, since it wasn't.

"It was more of a gamble," says Amber.

"Whatever it was, you guys stopped him, and saved the town," says the Pandawa captain.

"But not my shop!" says someone from the crowd, and moves in front of his store.

"Yeah, sorry about that," I say, since it's the only thing I can do.

"Don't worry about him, his store has been destroyed at least four times last month," says someone from the crowd.

"Then, how can he keep repairing it?"

"He has a friend who's a carpenter."

"Awesome."

"Enough of that, what about Captain Alfonse? Where is he?" asks the Pandawa.

"Who's that?" I ask, and it seems to surprise her.

"Are you kidding me? The man you just fought, Captain Alfonse, the most dreaded pirate in these seas! I can't believe you've never heard of him."

"I never asked, and he never gave me his name. Besides, me and my companions here dealt with a small army of undead sharks, and his entire crew. Also, not to show off or anything, but I had to fight the big ones. So, yeah, the only thing special about him was the crystal ball, which he forced us in getting it for him."

"Undead sharks?"

"Yeah, or to be more precise, shark skeletons."

"Well, whatever, we should probably find him before he comes back with his entire crew."

"I don't think we have to worry about that, Amber threw a card on the crystal ball, which exploded right in his face. So, we probably don't have to worry about him, ever." I don't want to say it, but we probably killed him with our little attack.

"Whoa, then you know what that means?"

"Something that involves food and drinks?"

"A celebration!" The crowd seems to agree with her because they throw a fist into the air, pick us up, and take us to the tavern.


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

So, we're having a party on the tavern, that the so called Captain Alfonse, was using as his little base, while me and my companions were going through all the trouble to get a crystal ball. I wasn't doing much, I took a seat on the counter, drinking my Bamboo Milk, and eating some fish. In all honesty, we're having a good time, good drinks, and good food, but it was interrupted by someone.

"What's going on in my tavern?!" asks an old Enutrof from the tavern's entrance.

"We're having a party for the heroes of this town," says someone from inside.

"And who's going to pay for all this?!"

"You shouldn't worry about it," says Amber. I look for her, and found her coming down from the stairs to the second floor. The surprising thing is that she's wearing new clothes, and it makes me wonder where she got them from.

"You got the money to pay for all this?"

"I don't have enough for this kind of party, but our good old friend, Captain Alfonse, left a lot of kamas in one of the rooms." Amber takes a seat next to Emily, who was sitting to my left on the counter. "And let me tell you that it can pay for this party, and much more." At the sound of that, the Enutrof seems to relax, and smiles.

"Then by all means, a cheer for our heroes!" At the sound of that, everyone cheers, and take a drink of whatever they got, with the tavern's owner joining in. Everything was going well, and then, the Pandawa captain joins us at the counter, with a drink in hand, which I assume it's Bamboo Milk.

"You know, I don't think we've ever introduced each other, my name is An Wong," says An.

"I'm Zoe," I introduce myself.

"I'm Emily, nice to meet you," says Emily, with some food in her mouth.

"And I'm Amber, a pleasure to make your acquaintance," says Amber, and takes a sip of her drink.

"So, what brought our saviors to our humble, little town?" asks An.

"Me and Emily were looking for a ship to Sufokia. As for Amber, she came here following some card," I answer.

"To be precise, Ecaflip guided me to this town," says Amber.

"Where you bet all of your money, and enslave yourself to some crazy pirate."

"Which allowed us to meet each other." Amber blows a kiss to me, and I just turn back to my food.

"Well, as thanks for saving my beloved ship, I'll be more than glad to take you to Sufokia," says An.

"We would really appreciate that." Whoa, wait a minute here.

"You make it sound like you're coming with me," I say to Amber.

"That's because I am."

"First of all, no one said you would, and second, let me think about it for a moment. The answer is no."

"Why not? She really helped us against Alfonse, and that dungeon," says Emily.

"And she's the one that got herself captured, and convinced the pirate to use us to get that crystal ball."

"We could really use her help."

"In losing all of our kamas. Besides, there's no need for another companion, we're already doing well on our own."

"Then how about I make a gamble against you," says Amber, which gets my curiosity.

"What kind of gamble?" She puts her hand into a bag, which I didn't see before. She probably went to the room that Alfonse was using to get her haven bag back. Then, she pulls out a deck of cards, puts them on the counter, and push them towards me.

"It's a simple game, and one that relies on luck. I'll let you shuffle the cards, any way that you want, pull one card, and without looking, I'll try to guess what card it is. If I win, you'll let me join you in your travels." I see where it's going.

"And if you lose, you can forget about it." Sounds very simple, and I don't see how I'm going to lose in it. There's a lot of cards in this deck, and she has to guess which one I'm going to pull out.

"Are you sure about this?" asks Emily. I don't know why she wants Amber to tag along, it could mean more mouths to feed.

"If Ecaflip wants me to go with the two of you, then he will allow it," says Amber. I don't say anything else, and shuffle the cards. After a few moments, I put the cards down on the counter, pull a card out of the deck, and put it face down on the counter.

"All right, which one is it?" I ask. Seriously, there's no way I'll lose, she probably has one in a thousand chance to get it right. I see Amber going deep in thought, and after a few moments, she looks at me, smiles, and gives her answer.

"The God Ecaflip." Okay, I pick up the card, and turn it around. Oh Ecaflip, I hope you're getting bitten by a thousand fleas, and suffer for all eternity. After seeing the card, I quickly put it back on the counter, face down, but I did it so fast, that I slam the card by accident. Then, I put a hand on my face because I don't want to give them the satisfaction, I won't allow it.

"So, was she right?" asks Emily, you little brat, don't you dare play with me like that.

"Come on, Zoe, we'll never know if you don't say anything," says An, and I'm pretty sure she's doing it just to have fun.

"Please, dear Zoe, I cannot take the suspense in the air, did I guessed right?" says Amber, and I can tell that she's being sarcastic, I can feel it.

"We can keep going all day long," says Emily. Nope, I won't give them the satisfaction, I won't react the way they want me to.

"Do you have a haven bag?" I ask.

"Yes, I went to the room that Alfonse was using, and found it near the pile of kamas," answers Amber, but still, I endure.

"But it won't mean much if she didn't guess right. If she did, it would be a relief, since there won't be a need to buy her one," says Emily. Goddammit, I give up.

"She got it right! There, are you happy?!" I yell to all three of them, flip the card, and just as Amber said, it was the God Ecaflip card.

"There, there, was it that hard?" Emily starts to pat my back.

"No dessert for you for a whole week."

"It was worth it."

"Well then, I need to get the supplies for the travel ahead. Now, don't sleep too late because we'll leave tomorrow morning," says An and starts to leave.

"With that decided," says Amber, and picks up her drink, "here's a toast for our victory against the evil Captain Alfonse." Emily picks up her drink.

"And a toast for our new companion," says Emily, but I don't pick up my drink. I simply do not want to celebrate my defeat, but Emily nudge at me, letting me know that they won't take a no for an answer. With no other alternative, I grab my drink, and raise it into the air, without taking my hand from my face.

"Cheers," says Amber, and we drink, which I do with contempt. Then, I return to my food, and try to ignore the whole thing, like it never happened.

"Come on, Zoe, why don't you accept her into the group, like you did to me? She proved herself capable of handling herself, and helped us in a lot of ways," says Emily, and I just look at her. She really wants me to accept Amber into the group, I can see it in her eyes. Then, I look at Amber, and she gives me a smile, not the kind that's asking for sex, or is trying to seduce me. It's a very friendly smile, like she's really asking for my acceptance. I look at them over, and over, which leave me with no choice. I look away, take a deep breath, let it out, relax, and look back at them.

"Okay, I welcome you into our new group," I say.

"Thank you, Zoe, it really means a lot to me," says Amber.

"Of course, on the condition that you refrain yourself from gambling our money, okay?"

"I promise that I will not gamble, as long as I'm with the group." It's good to know that she's a very reasonable person. "Now, how about we strengthen our bond with some 'quality' time together?" Well, it was too much to hope for.

"No."

"I'll get you one of these days."

"Not even in your dreams." After that, we continue to enjoy the celebration. When midnight arrived, we went to one of the rooms upstairs, got into our haven bags, and went to sleep.


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

The next morning, I wake up from my sleep, and from a very interesting dream, but I have things to do. So, I reluctantly get up from bed, and prepare for the day, which involves a bath. Thinking again, I should be tired of water, since me and my companions just happened to have fought against a crazy pirate with the power to control water. However, I do need to take a bath, and not matter what, I'm going to take it. Anyways, I take it, get clothes on, and get out of my bag.

Once outside, my two companions also get out of their bags, with Amber wearing new clothes, while Emily is wearing the same thing. I mean, I know they always try to remain hidden, or something like that, but for every day sounds a little too much. Well, I'm not a Sram, so whatever works for her.

"Ready to go?" I ask.

"As ready as we can be," says Emily.

"Then let's go to the docks, An might be waiting already." We head to the door, and the moment I open the door, we find An at the other side, ready to knock on the door.

"Top of the morning, everyone," says An after dropping her hand.

"Morning," we say.

"So, you have everything ready?"

"All set and ready to board," I say.

"Then follow me to the docks. Our adventure awaits!" says An and starts walking away, while we follow behind her.

We walk out of the inn, and on our way to the docks, people greeted us, and wished us good luck in our travels.

"So, how does it feel to be heroes?" asks An.

"Been there already, but it's always nice," I say.

"Same here," says Emily.

"I'm actually enjoying it for the first time," says Amber.

"Well, enjoy it as much as you can because we're about to leave this place, and head straight to Sufokia," says An and we continue on our way to her boat. Once we reach her boat, we simply get on board, but I found something weird about the boat.

"So, where's your crew?" I ask, and An turns around with a smile on her face.

"Right here," says An, which was pretty weird. She doesn't point towards anything, she simply keeps looking our way. Maybe they're behind us, so I look behind me, but I don't see anyone. Wait a minute, it's not what I think it is, and if it is, this is going to be weird.

"There's no one else but us."

"Exactly." Oh my goddess, she didn't.

"I don't get it," says Emily.

"She means that we are the crew," says Amber, good to know someone can catch on quicker than our little Sram.

"Wait, what happened to your crew?"

"The lot of them never returned, and for good reason. I wasn't going to take them back anyways," answers An.

"And now, you need a crew to pilot the whole ship," I say, and I'm not exactly mad, but I feel played, and I don't like that.

"Don't you worry, we're more than enough to make her sail."

"Yeah, I'm sure we are, but the real problem is that I'm pretty sure none of us know how to make a ship work."

"Is that right?" asks An and looks at my companions.

"I lived most of my life in Brakmar, so I never touched a boat before," answers Emily.

"I've traveled in a boat before, but I don't think that would help right now," says Amber.

"Well don't you worry, just do what I ask and we'll be just fine," says An, and walks towards the wheel.

"You sure you don't mean order?" I ask.

"Hey, you guys saved, not only the port, but my ship. So no, I won't treat my heroes like my useless crew. Besides, I didn't treat them that bad, I just put discipline when it was necessary."

"Yeah, let's go with that. Are we ready to go?"

"Get the anchor up, and let's set sail to Sufokia!" I don't know why she does that. Anyways, we look for the thing to pull up the anchor, but we don't see it. "It's at the bow."

"The bow?" asks Emily, and An look at us with a blank expression.

"The front of the ship." With that knowledge, we head to the front of the ship, and find the thing to pull up the anchor. We get it up, and we wait for the next thing to do. "Now, the sails." I imagine she wants one of us to climb the mast and release it. Of course, I don't want to waste time, and climb it using my tattoos. I found the knot holding something, so I just pull it free, and the sails open. The ship starts to slowly move away from the port.

"Anything else?" I ask.

"Not at the moment, you can come down." I climb back down, it's simply too high to jump down and don't want to damage the ship. "Well then, sit back, relax, and enjoy the trip."

It's been two days since me and my companions left the port and set sail to Sufokia. True to her words, An has been a good captain, and it's been a normal trip. Sure, we had to help around the ship, usually cleaning, helping with some cooking, working the sails, etc. Today wasn't any different, we finished cleaning the deck a while ago, and were just enjoying the day. As far as I understand, An was on the deck doing some fighting moves. Emily was on the wheel because she wanted to try it for the first time. Our course was already set, so she only needed to keep the ship straight. Amber below deck, said that she wanted to make sure 'our fortune was favorable', or something like that. As for me, I'm just resting on the rail, and also keeping an eye out for trouble. Even in the open sea, there could be danger, like pirates, or something else. Don't know what else, but it's always good to be ready. Suddenly, I feel something, it's very familiar, and it's coming to my right. I take a look, and find our captain looking at me, while holding some pose. To be honest, it's not the first time, I've noticed her looking at me yesterday and the day before. I would say she's checking me out, but she always kept a very calm expression, and tended to look away pretty quickly. However, this time was different because she kept eye contact with me.

"Say, mind if we have a sparring session?" asks An, and it came so suddenly, it took me a moment to understand what was going on.

"I don't mind, but why so sudden?" I ask.

"Nothing special, just trying to keep my skills sharp." That makes sense, I guess.

"Alright, just let me stretch a bit." I move away from the rail, and simply start stretching and warming up. Through the whole thing I noticed An watching me, but in a different way. It's like she's looking for something, but I have no idea what it could be. Maybe she's just looking for my weaknesses, but it's just a sparring match. It's not like we have to be so serious about it. Anyways, once I'm done with my warm ups, we move to the center of the deck, and move a few feet away from each other. Then, An takes a fighting pose, and I never thought about it, but that might be one of the reasons that she was the captain of her own ship.

"Are you ready for this, hero?" she asks with a confident smile. I can sense it now, she really means to take it seriously, and I'm not one to disappoint. I take my fighting pose, and prepare for whatever she throws at me.

"Just call me Zoe." I don't remember the last time I fought a Pandawa, this should be interesting.


End file.
